


Quod me Nutrit

by K_dAzrael



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Daddy Issues, Emperor Hux: Origins, Evil Space Boyfriends, Hux-centric, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-17 02:02:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5849728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_dAzrael/pseuds/K_dAzrael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Each man that would be truly great must kill his father, General Hux. In this respect, Kylo Ren is only more literal than most.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Hux dipped the end of his comb into pomade and tapped it sharply against the rim to clear the excess from between the tines, then found his parting with a fingertip, sweeping the comb sideways from the mark. He raised his eyes to the plate of mirrored transparisteel he had propped in place and touched his finger to the pot of cosmetic creme, applying it to the reddened corners of his eyes and mouth – the ravages of a life lived in artificially circulated air. Next, he took his daily dose of vitamin D, an artificial replacement for the sunlight he would never see. Then he dressed himself in full uniform – a set that bore fold marks from months in vacuum-packed storage, but would have to do, for now. For the first time since the loss of the Starkiller Base he felt something like his old self. He swung his greatcoat into place across his shoulders and tightened the buttons of his gloves, then took a deep fortifying breath and went to keep his appointment with the Supreme Leader.

A shuttle took him from the Finalizer down to the planet’s surface. A great stone edifice rose in steps above the treeline of the misty, jungle terrain. Hux was conducted to a lofty stone chamber within where he found the Supreme Leader sitting in state atop a dais. Snoke was smaller in real life than in his holographic projection, less like some kind of terrible elder god and more like something wretched and pitiable. His grey-white flesh looked like it had been torn from his skull and sewn back in place by a taxidermist of no very great skill or scrupulosity.

“General.” His voice had a sharp, ringing quality and echoed off the stone walls.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux clicked his booted heels together smartly and saluted, then stood to attention. “I thank you for the honour of this audience.”

Snoke leaned back, spidery fingers tapping on the arms of his throne. “Kylo Ren has already briefed me on the regrettable chain of events that led to the destruction of the Starkiller. Strange, is it not, how much disorder can result from a tiny cog gone awry – one stormtrooper has an attack of conscience and the end result…” Snoke lifted his hands and turned them upwards.

“Respectfully, Supreme Leader, I think that Ren may have somewhat understated his own role in the disaster.”

“You must bear in mind that Ren is with the First Order, but not _of_ the First Order. He answers to me alone. He has his own instructions and his own agenda.”

“He certainly has his own agenda. Had he not been chasing his personal demons we might have succeeded in finally destroying the rebel stronghold.”

“Ren did what was necessary under the circumstances.”

“I fail to see how killing that pathetic, beaten-down confidence trickster he once called ‘father’ could be necessary to our mission.” Hux feared he had overstepped his bounds with this criticism, but Snoke merely looked amused. He leaned forward, black eyes shining in the dim light that filtered down from narrow slits in the ceiling. “Each man that would be truly great must kill his father, General Hux. In this respect, Kylo Ren is only more _literal_ than most.”

“I see.” Hux held Snoke’s searching gaze and tried not to blink or look away.

“You are troubled, General. You cannot accept your great loss and you begin to doubt our final victory, as well as your own role in it.”

“Supreme Leader I—”

“Do not bother to deny it. This, too, is a necessary process. Know that Kylo Ren will be with me for some time to complete the final stage of his training. In the meantime, if you have demons of your own to contend with, I suggest you take the time to do so. Now go; return when you have regained your resolve.”

“As you command.” Hux ducked his head in obeisance and went from the room.

As he passed through an antechamber, Hux came upon Kylo Ren, who was lurking, perhaps awaiting a summons of his own. Ren had yet to receive a replacement helmet and so the raw, red line that bisected his face diagonally, cresting over the bridge of his nose, stood out starkly. Whatever else remained of his injuries was hidden by his layers of black clothing. He glared at Hux with his usual mix of distrust and resentment.

 _Ungrateful whelp_ , Hux thought pointedly, aware that Ren was prone to casually thumbing through the contents of his mind. Looking for tidbits, no doubt, to drop at the feet his master. _Don’t forget who dragged your bleeding, broken body out of the snow._

“Did you have a good talk with our Supreme Leader?” Ren quipped.

“ _Enlightening_.”

Ren crossed his arms over his chest, using this movement to draw attention from a shift of his hips that betrayed lingering discomfort from the injury to his side. “Now, whatever will you do with all this free time while I am busy training?”

“That is no concern of yours, Ren.”

“Perhaps you’ll act like a true red-blooded soldier for once and spend all your back pay in some remote cantina. Imagine that – General Hux, letting loose.”

“Perhaps I will,” Hux retorted. “It would be fitting – that I learn the novelty of reckless self-indulgence as you learn that of discipline.”

Ren’s eyes widened with outrage at this, but Hux paid him no heed. He turned and briskly made his way from the room.

*~*~*

Hux could have chartered a ship to his next destination, but he preferred to maintain anonymity. He took a shuttle to the nearest populous planet and a passenger ship from there, from there he bartered passage on a freighter. There was little call for tourism to the Outer Rim.

As he leaned his shoulder against a rusted bulkhead, Hux closed his eyes and tried to rest. He shifted in his civilian clothes, which fit him loosely, like a skin he had already shed. One of his earliest memories was of a journey like this: the belly of a ship not designed to carry human passengers; his mother’s hand in his hair as she pressed his face to her chest, fingernails sharp against his scalp. Later (much later) he would learn that the second Death Star had just been destroyed. The Empire was fracturing, its soldiers and statesmen turning on one another in fear, panic and opportunistic ambition.

He thought of the snowy ground shaking beneath his feet as the Starkiller base began to be consumed by its own solar fuel. The Sith of old had a motto: ‘what nourishes me also destroys me’; in the original Balc tongue the phrase was somewhat palindromic.

He thought of the black figure collapsed in defeat, of bending and hefting the weight of the prone man to lie just-so over his shoulder, and lifting with his knees, staggering for a moment under the dead weight. There was so much blood in the snow Hux had momentarily considered giving up and simply waiting for the inevitable explosion – because Snoke had told him to bring Ren back alive, and the Supreme Leader did not tolerate failure (at least, not in non-Force users).

On the escape shuttle, he had unbuckled Ren’s belt and pressed both hands to the leaking blaster wound to apply pressure (the other injuries were from sabers, and thus self-cauterising). Ren’s breath rattled from between his blue-white lips as he grabbed at Hux and smeared blood all down the side of the general’s face. Hux does not like blood – he is not a butcher, or a sadist. Violence, when necessary, should be impersonal. 

*~*~*

Jerne was a god-forsaken, arid planet; home to an extinct species and subsequently subjected to a land-grab by unscrupulous industrialists. When the natural resources were depleted, the planet had once again fallen off the radar of civilization. It was now only used as a staging post by those seeking a less conspicuous travel route than the Hydian Way – smugglers, in other words, and outlaws.

From the sleazy port, Hux made his way on foot for a few miles. He passed scrap metal dealerships, drinking and gambling establishments, and brothels; further out were the shanty towns that ran on purloined power run through miles of frayed, humming cable. Then there was simply nothing – wave after wave of sand dunes, the vista enlivened with only the odd outcropping of rock or remnant of a disused mining structure (whatever could not be scavenged and carted away). He oriented himself and made his way over a ridge and into a sort of valley beyond. There nestled a white building made up of an interconnected series of domes. A plume of grey smoke drifted from an aperture in the roof.

Hux half-walked, half slid down into the sandy basin. Nothing but a thick canvas curtain covered the main entrance way, and he pushed it aside before ducking into the first chamber. As he did so, Hux caught sight of the dwelling’s occupant in an unguarded moment. He took in the face in profile – lined but still shrewd, faint traces of auburn accenting his beard at the jaw and temples. The man sat up at a table, his ramrod-straight spine betraying his military heritage. He was scrolling through information on an old, battered datapad.  

“Hello, Commandant.”

“Brendol,” came the other man’s gruff reply. Hux stiffened at the use of his given name – a name he never used, and had never felt belonged to him. “You look well.”

“I see you’re keeping busy. What are you researching?”

“I’m writing an account. It’s about the rise of the Empire.”

“I thought there would be plenty of records of that already.”

“Well, they never get it all right, or there are significant omissions.”

Hux nodded. He remembered the end of year presentations at the academy when he was a teenager; how the instructors would bring him up on the stage before the assembly and get him to extemporise speeches in response to a flawed precept (‘liberty is a right that supersedes law’), or to answer obscure questions concerning military history. Hux always excelled in these exhibitions, and the assembled parents and cadets would dutifully applaud. Afterwards, his father would take him aside, heavy hand on his narrow adolescent shoulder, and task him on a trivial distinction or neglected detail.

“What are you doing back here?” the older man asked.

“I have some leave.” Hux dropped his kit bag and rolled his stiff shoulder.

“What kind of outfit grants leave in the middle of an ongoing campaign?”

“Our Supreme Leader is a man of singular vision, though his methods may seem unconventional.”

“So I hear.” His father grunted, pushed himself out of his chair. “You plan on quartering here long?”

“Not long. I wanted to see how you were.”

“I’m not an invalid.”

“I realise that.”

His father went to the small, primitive hotplate and stirred the steaming contents of a battered caf can. “You want a cup of this?”

Hux nodded. “Yes, thank-you.”

“Sit down then.”

Hux took up a place upon a footstool – the only other seat in the small, spare room. When his father passed him the mug he cupped his hands around it gratefully, shivering – he was not used to the vagaries of temperature that one encountered outside a pressurized cabin. “Did you get my message?”

“What message?”

“I sent you an invitation to the promotion ceremony.”

“Oh,” the older man said flatly, “that.”

“I thought you might at least send a reply.”

“I considered that no reply was clear enough,” his father stared down at his drink. “Let’s not talk about it.”

“I thought you would be proud. You raised me for this.”

“I raised you to serve the Empire. There’s no Empire anymore – this, this ‘New Order’—”

“First Order.”

“It’s nature abhorring a vacuum. A horde of nobodies playing dress-up.” His father shook his head and looked away. “You’re too young to remember what it was really like – the Empire’s forces were a well-oiled machine. Officers were rigorously trained, the weak weeded from the ranks.”

“Yes, you certainly saw to that.”

His father waved a hand in agitation. “I mean it as no criticism of you, son – you always showed ability. But in those days, I would never have to call some fresh-faced youth ‘General’.”

“Is that what you think – that I attained my rank out of desperation, or pity?” Hux stared at him for a long, dangerous moment. “You have no idea what I have sacrificed. The schemes I built, who I had to climb over, or what it all cost me.”

The older man narrowed his eyes. “Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?”

“No. I merely thought that you, of all people, might understand. Then again, you never really did get very far up the ranks. You preferred to surround yourself with the young and impressionable, those who might lap up your schemes and carry them forward without any effort – or risk – on your part.”

“Brendol. I suggest you stop now before you say something you regret.”

“I don’t mean it as a criticism, necessarily. You were effective, in your own way. Did you know that we now train the stormtroopers just as you always suggested – taking them as children, as the Jedi did, raising them up to do our bidding without question?” Hux sniffed, sipped his drink. “It’s not one hundred percent effective, I regret to say.”

“No doubt you neglected to cull the weak recruits. Or encourage the herd to thin itself, which is better.”

“The First Order does not like to waste resources.”

“Better to lose one sickly nerf than risk the infection of the whole flock.”

“Well,” Hux said, tossing the bitter dregs into the fire and rising to his feet. “Doubtless, if you were in charge, the whole thing would run without a hitch – the Republic and the Resistance wouldn’t get a look-in. But you had your chance, and now here you are, in exile, dreaming of the glorious Empire that once was.”

His father looked up. “Leaving already? What did you even come here for – my blessing?”

“Would you give it to me if I asked?”

“No. I recognise folly and arrogance when I see it.”

“Do you really, father?” Hux shouldered his bag and took a lingering look at the figure in the chair. Then he turned and pushed his way past the ragged curtain and back into the desert night.

When he had passed over the brow of the dune he slid to his knees, casting his bag from him and pulling at the fabric draped around his neck as he gasped for air. He looked at the twin moons hanging low and ominous in the sky and laughed. He reflected that all his life he had been pounding on the locked door of his father’s regard and now he knew that it was not a door at all, but a blank, impenetrable wall. _Enough_ , he said to himself and breathed.

In the distance, coloured lights twinkled, guiding him back to the nearest thing this planet had to civilization. 

*~*~*

The barman had sold Hux a bottle of what he claimed was Corellian Brandy, yet the peeling label lacked the point-of-origin hologram that would confirm it as the genuine product, rather than a bootlegged knock-off that was no doubt full of adulterants. Hux found that he didn’t care. In fact, as the night progressed, he was increasingly surprising himself with the things he no longer had the capacity to give a damn about. The group of Twi’lek in the cantina’s far corner were clearly haggling over a consignment of illegal arms. The sabacc players to his far left were gambling (and cheating, and wearing weapons they undoubtedly did not have permits for). A drunken bounty hunter sitting at the table across from Hux was being deftly pick-pocketed by his female companion (whose outfit seemed cunningly designed to assist her with a career in misdirection). What did it matter? Sooner or later, the First Order would sweep these miscreants – and all who harboured them – away.

The liquor burned his throat and sinuses as he took a large gulp from his glass, the warm, fuzzy ambience gradually increasing.

A young man stopped by Hux’s table and glanced down at the three-quarters full bottle. He had dark, shoulder length hair that fell in tangled waves and eyes that had a strange, inhuman opalescence. He wore a belted tunic of some lightweight, woven material and both of his bare forearms were laden with half a dozen coloured wooden bracelets that clacked together as he gestured and moved. “Are we celebrating a good day, or getting over a really bad one?”

“Celebrating.”

“Oh yeah?” the young man’s smile was just a little forced. “What’s the occasion?”

Hux poured himself another glassful. “I just killed my father.” As young man’s eyes widened and drifted to his kit bag, Hux waved a hand and added: “Figuratively.”

“Figuratively,” the young man repeated, as if by doing so he could absorb the word’s meaning. “Can I join you?”

“By all means.” When the young man slid into the booth next to him, Hux turned over the second dirty glass that had come with his ‘brandy’ and poured him a large measure. “Coruscanti?” he asked.

The young man swallowed down half his drink in one gulp and shook his head. “Alderaanian.”

Hux raised a sceptical eyebrow. “There hasn’t been an Alderaan in your lifetime.”

“No, but my parents were off-planet when… when it was destroyed. I grew up in a refugee enclave on Raxxa. What about you?”

“Here and there. I was a military brat, spent most of my childhood in academies.”

“That sounds rough. Is that why you hated your father?”

“No, that’s because he refuses to believe it’s my destiny to become the new galactic emperor.”

The Alderaanian grinned, taking the statement as a joke. “That’s terrible. I thought parents were supposed to support your dreams no matter what.”

“Exactly.” Hux poured him another drink.

“I like your hair,” the Alderaanian said, tilting his head. “And your see-through eyelashes. Are you genetically enhanced?”

Hux laughed. “No, though I suppose it’s a rare phenotype in this end of the galaxy.” He lifted a forefinger and indicated the other man’s strange eyes. “Is that what this is, an enhancement?”

“Yeah, got it done a while back in Truuzdann. So I can see in the dark.”

“And what do you see in the dark?”

The Alderaanian sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and smiled at him. “All kinds of things.” Hux heard the clackity-clack of the bracelets and a warm hand came to rest just above his knee. He glanced sharply down and then back up at the other man’s liquid-mercury eyes.

Hux did not consider himself sheltered: in his younger years, he had occasionally taken advantage of off-planet leave to relieve his sexual tensions, generally in the hands of professionals. There had even been two affairs, of sorts. The first was when he was sixteen or seventeen years old – naturally enough, with a fellow cadet. It was hormone-fuelled and largely unsentimental: furtive open-mouthed kisses and handjobs in moments stolen between classes and drills. One afternoon they were happened upon by an instructor and dragged before the commandant. Hux sat on a hard plastic chair and listened to the abject sobs and pleadings of his co-conspirator: he had been confused, the youth claimed, led astray. _Please don’t tell my father._

Hux had been annoyed: he distinctly remembered telling the other boy to check that the storage room door was locked. In the end, no formal record was made of their Conduct Unbecoming, and Hux had always suspected this was in deference to his own father. The other boy later died in a freak accident when one of the blasters used in a wargames simulation was found to have been unaccountably switched from ‘training’ to ‘combat’ mode.   

The second was when Hux was a little while out of the academy and newly appointed to the rank of lieutenant, stationed on a reclaimed Imperial Army base on Felucia. A male corporal assigned to the same barracks struck up something of a rapport with Hux. The corporal was from Naboo; Hux considered him uncharacteristically bright for a non-commissioned officer and they often played holochess together when off duty. Hux enjoyed his company and had he been prone to sentiment he might have termed their association a friendship. Then one evening the corporal surprised him by cornering Hux in the corridor outside his quarters and declaring a violent love for him. Hux could still feel the pressure of hot, clammy hands clinging to his own, thumbs stroking his knuckles. The other man’s eyes were wide and earnest, his bottom lip trembled. _I know it’s crazy, but I can’t stop thinking about you. You are the best thing in my life, do you know that?_

Hux politely declined his attentions and later reported him for fraternization.

The Alderaanian was still gazing at him through slightly lowered lashes.

 “Well,” Hux said, sounding flat to his own ears. “That’s quite a proposition.”

The Alderaanian read this as encouragement. “I know where to get a decent room. We can take the bottle.”

*~*~*

Hux woke in darkness to the sound of a thud and a hissed curse. He rolled over and patted for the light. The panel next to the bed flickered slowly to life, casting everything in a frigid blue glow.

The Alderaanian was fully dressed, crouched on the floor by Hux’s bag; some of its contents were strewn about next to him. The first thought Hux had was that the man was a spy for the Resistance, but his frozen, panicked look plainly told this was not so – that he was just an ordinary kind of scoundrel.

“If you wanted payment you should have arranged it in advance,” Hux told him, sitting up and carding his fingers through his hair.

“I’m not a whore,” the Alderaanian hissed.

“I don’t see what cause you have to take offence – it’s perfectly legal in this sector, unlike thievery.”

As the young man sat back on his haunches, Hux took note of what he held in his hands: his uniform hat, with its prominent risen sun insignia.

“You’re with the First Order, those new-wave imperialist thugs.”

“Everyone will soon be with the First Order, or they will be dead. I suggest you choose wisely, Alderaanian.” His rose from the bed and sought out the clothes he had left draped over a chair. “Put everything back where you found it and perhaps I won’t drag you to the nearest security force outpost.”

“You kriffing wish!” The Alderaanian sprang up and rushed at him. Hux swept the other man’s foot out from under him and slammed him face-first onto the filthy floor, bending his arm up behind his back. Then Hux put his knee to the small of the Alderaanian’s back and leaned all his weight on it.

“Careful now. I’m an imperialist thug, remember?”

The Alderaanian let out a yell of pain and fury, bucking against Hux and getting nowhere. With his dark hair spread across a face contorted in impotent rage, he rather reminded Hux of Kylo Ren. “Get off me you sadistic pig.”

“Ah-ah-ah. I have been nothing but accommodating all evening. It is you whose manners need a significant adjustment.”

“Please!”

When Hux finally released him, the Alderaanian twisted away and scrambled across the floor. He then sat with his back against the far wall, rubbing his elbow and glaring. “I don’t have a choice!” he spat petulantly. “I need to get passage out of this hell-hole.”

“That’s really none of my concern, is it?” Hux continued to dress, shrugging on his civilian jacket and slinging his holster belt into place around his hips. His head was pounding but he was not about to turn his back to dig the med-kit containing analgesics from the bottom of his bag.

“It should be,” the Alderaanian bared his teeth. “I could tell some stories about you, you know. To people who’d be interested.”

Anger flared behind Hux’s eyes. He thought about what Ren would do when faced with such an insolent threat – use the Force to drag the man off the ground by his throat and suspend him there until his fragile hyoid bone buckled inwards and choked him, no doubt.

 “You don’t even know my name, or my rank, and I highly doubt that the Resistance cares about an enemy officer’s tawdry little fling at the arse-end of the galaxy.”

“Brendol Hux,” the Alderaanian retorted defiantly. “I read it on a datapad. I told you I can see in the dark. There’s a crazy old man who lives outside town with that name – I bet that’s your father, right?”

Hux sat on the edge of the bed, pulling the blaster from its holster and placing it on his knee. He stared at it contemplatively for a moment. “I was presented with this at my last medal pinning. It’s intended to be ceremonial, and I have never fired it. Do you know why that is?”

The Alderaanian curled his lip in false bravado. “Because you’re a coward who’s afraid to get his hands dirty?”

Hux raised his eyes. “Because this is a weapon for killing rebel scum at close-quarters, and I have people to do that for me.” He unlatched the safety with his thumb. “Usually, that is.”


	2. Chapter 2

Hux’s mother had clearly just returned from a round of visitations: she wore her court dress, an elaborate confection of rich, textured fabrics in a blood red. She threw off her mantle and approached Hux in a breathless rush of delight.

“ _Bren_. Bren my darling.”

He felt the sting of old indignity from the diminutive, but breathed and summoned a smile. “Hello, mother.”

She took his hands and leaned in to allow him to kiss her cheek, then pulled back and held him at arm’s length while she looked him over. Her long fingernails, elaborately figured with layers of raised enamel, pricked against the backs of his knuckles. “You wicked creature. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have cancelled my engagements.”

“I am sorry to inconvenience you, but it was something of short notice.”

“There’s nothing wrong, is there darling?” She gazed at him shrewdly. “We did get news through the usual channels of the _unfortunate loss_. I feared for you, but it was reported that the people of quality were all evacuated.”

“It’s a setback, nothing more. I haven’t been stripped of my rank and sent home in disgrace, if that is what concerns you.”

“Bren, you would never do anything to incur disgrace. I know _that_ perfectly well.” She released his hands and stepped back. “Now, since we understand each other, let’s have no more unpleasantness. I am pleased you are here and we’ll have to make the most of it. Perhaps it’s not so desperately late for us to organise a little party in your honour.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

“Of course it is. What will people say if you visit and disappear like a thief in the night? No, that won’t do at all.” Hux caught the inference – this was not about a proud mother showing off her son; it was about showing those eminent crypto-imperial Brentaal houses with whom she associated that the First Order was more than a group of outlying zealots. The consolidation of power was not merely a matter of troops and artillery, after all – foremost, it was about assuring the more cautious of the old guard that it was already _fait accompli_.

She took in his clothes and raised a sceptical brow. “I know you can’t exactly wear your dress greys here, but I hope you packed something a touch more formal?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good.” His mother smiled and stroked back the hair at his temples. “You look tired, darling. Let’s go up to the terrace and have some refreshments, hmm?” She linked Hux’s arm and began to lead him through the gallery. “Now, what news do you have that’s fit for my civilian ears?”

“Very little. I stopped on Jerne briefly.”

His mother raised her eyes skywards as if to appeal for strength from a higher power. “And how is your father? Still playing at being a noble hermit whom the galaxy has unjustly scorned?”

Hux nodded. “Exactly that.”

“I hope he didn’t upset you, dear. He’s a bitter old fool and a great disappointment to me personally.” She said this last part as if it were the greatest condemnation she could imagine.

“No, he didn’t upset me.”

“Really,” she said, gathering her skirts to one side as they began to ascend the great main staircase, “I could forgive him the hardship, all those joyless years in the Unknown Regions. What I could never forgive is his betrayal. To sacrifice not just the best years of his life, but mine – and yours – and then to turn as soon as our side began to finally rally? It was perverse.”

“He wanted the old Empire back, as it was, whole and complete. The First Order was too different, too radical for his tastes.”

“I suppose he’s more to be pitied than despised. He’s not like us, Bren – he’s not resilient.”

On the terrace, they found someone waiting: a lanky, saturnine-looking man with an abundance of dark hair he wore swept behind one shoulder. He was seated at the low table with one bare foot up on a cushioned bench. He was reading a book – not just a holorecord, but an antique thing made of brittle slivers of compacted wood-pulp which he held negligently in one hand. 

“Hello darling, I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Hux’s mother said. Turning to Hux she observed “oh, you haven’t met Ansul, have you?”

“No, not yet,” he replied.  Ansul was his mother’s fourth husband, but Hux’s duties had required him to decline to attend the wedding. The groom-to-be had not looked so young in the projected invitation – in the flesh, Hux now estimated him at a few standard years younger than himself.

“Ansul, this is my son, General Brendol Hux.”

“General Hux. I’ve heard a lot about you.” The form was polite, but the words were said brusquely and without warmth. Given the importance his mother placed on first impressions, Hux gathered that this husband was something of a work in progress.

“I’m going to see if we can rustle up some guests for this evening, as Bren is here,” his mother pressed. “Some of your family are still wintering here in Cormond, aren’t they?”

Ansul looked up sharply. “ _This_ evening?”

“Did you have plans?”

“Yes.”

“ _Important_ ones?”

“Not especially,” Ansul’s expression grew flustered, “but I hadn’t reckoned on company.”

“Well, what trouble is it to you? Some calls, you might have to put on shoes. The price of being a gentleman of leisure, hmm?”

Ansul looked between his wife and her full-grown son with an expression of helpless frustration. He put down his book with a pointed _thud_. Hux’s mother merely smiled placidly and touched her son’s arm. “Do sit down. I’ll have the droid bring another place setting.”

“There is no need,” Ansul said, rising. “I’m not hungry in the least. Racanna, may I talk to you in private?”

“ _Really_ , Ansul,” she said, her expression one of rapidly-waning patience. “Excuse me just one moment, Bren.”

Hux watched the couple retreat to the far end of the terrace and pass behind some pale, gauzy curtains that hung between two tall pillars. Snippets of their conversation could still be heard according to capricious turns of the breeze. Hux’s mother’s voice was a low, imperturbable murmur, her young husband’s rather more emphatic. Hux caught _really such a good idea_ and _not endanger ourselves_. He sighed and took the opportunity to pour out the tea and select the most promising pastry for his own plate.

Gradually, the argument trailed away and as Hux glanced up he saw the shadowy outlines of the two figures, the larger one kneeling and pressing its face to the other’s hand; the image shifting as the wind gently undulated the curtain. Soon, Hux’s mother emerged, head held high and expression composed.

“I’m sorry for that unpleasantness,” she said as she reached the table and took her seat. “Ansul can be rather difficult around strangers.”

“He must have redeeming qualities, if you married him.”

“I consider that he has potential. The clay is not quite dry, if you know what I mean.”

Hux knew well enough what she meant – that a young man could be manipulated to her purposes much more readily than an older one.

She took the plate of delicacies he offered and made her selection. “And then there are his connections. He’s a third son – no prospects to speak of himself, but useful relations.”

“And he’s in love with you.”

She glanced up, as if surprised by the remark. “Well naturally. You don’t think all my charms have faded, do you?”

“Of course not.” His mother has always been striking, such that she drew the gaze of a crowded room. Hux knew this was something that had once made his father inordinately proud, as if her beauty and poise were some accomplishment of his own. Her pale gold hair was now threaded very finely with silver, but arranged in loops and coils about her head it looked more crown-like and ethereal than ever. Her face having lost the dewy plumpness of youth only emphasised the high, patrician nobility of her bone structure.

Hux was often rather glad that he had no desire for women – he was by no means convinced he would ever find one to compare to Racanna. And really, there was nothing more pathetic than a man in love with the sacred image of his mother.

As Hux set down his cup, he ventured: “I have one of my own, you know – a troublesome boy.” At his mother’s raised eyebrow he clarified, “not a lover. A co-worker, of sorts.”

“Is he a rival?”

“Not exactly. We are both high in the favour of the Supreme Leader, but on separate tracks. He’s a warrior, a powerful Force-adept.”

His mother leaned forward, keeping her voice low. “Are you talking about Kylo Ren?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“Whispers, here and there. In secure channels, you understand. I thought perhaps he was just a myth, a propaganda symbol used to inspire fear among the Resistance.”

“He’s very much a real person, and occasionally even a force to be reckoned with. He has his uses – as you say, propaganda – but he suffers rather from the excessive zeal of the convert.”

“‘Excessive’ - how so?”

“His violence can be useful when it’s properly directed, but all too often there is no reasoning with him. If I object to his tactics or priorities I’m told _you don’t understand the power of the dark side_ , and that is the end of that.”

His mother’s expression darkened and became more pensive. “This worries me, Bren, I must confess. If we allow it, the Force-users will once again treat the galaxy as if it’s nothing more than a flimsy backdrop for their mystical squabbles. The rest of us actually have to _live_ here.”

“I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, there is no escaping their power or influence. Our Supreme Leader is himself one of them.”

“Currently.” His mother let the ambiguity of the remark hang. “In the meantime, what can be done with your troublesome boy?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What does he want?”

“I don’t think he knows, that’s the problem.”

“Then that makes it so much simpler. None are so easy to lead as those who are uncertain of purpose.”

Hux tilted his head in thought. “He does have obvious weaknesses. He is very prone to extremes of emotion – mostly rage and self-pity.”

“Mmm, sounds like your father.” She sat back in her chair and considered Hux for a long moment, threading her fingers together on her lap. After a long pause, she asked: “have you ever considered doing what he wants – taking pity on him?”

“Do you think he would allow it? He’s fiercely proud, in his way, and also a mind-reader.”

“Well, you say he’s a convert to the cause. A convert leaves behind old ties, old certainties; they are in exile from all the comforts they have known. You know something of exile, don’t you Bren?”

Hux stiffened. “Yes, of course.”

“Then use that. I’m sure he has wounds you could plug, and he would be grateful for it.”

Hux smiled at this. “It just so happens that Ren was severely injured on our last mission and I was forced to staunch the bleeding with my hands.”

“Well then. Just do it again – this time a little more figuratively.”

Hux rubbed his temples and sighed. “Then again, it might be simpler in the long run to eliminate him.”

“Perhaps. Still, it strikes me he would be useful. His reputation has its advantages, as you say, and he would provide a sense of continuity – the old emperor had a dark Jedi servant as his right hand. People are superstitious about that kind of thing, you know.”

“I doubt Ren would agree to serve me. He would find answering to a military man demeaning.”

“I’m sure you can find a more palatable form for the offer. What can you give him that the current leader cannot, or will not?”

“I don’t know.”

His mother reached over and tapped his hand. “Then make it your priority to find out, my clever boy.”

They lapsed into a companionable silence after that, finishing the refreshments and watching the horizon settling into brilliant oranges and pinks. Hux’s fingertips found their way to the spine of the little book that his mother’s husband had left behind. He pulled it towards himself and began flipping through the gilt-edged pages with their tiny, intricate letters.

“What is this?” he asked.

His mother smiled. “Oh, it’s a little gift I got for Ansul – he fancies himself a touch _spiritual_. Ancient Jedi koans – in translation, of course.”

Hux’s fingertip followed a line as he read: “‘First there is a planet. Then there is no planet. Then there is.’”

His mother shook her head, smiling wryly. “Too obscure for me. Can you make something of that?”

Hux thought of the Starkiller; its debris spiralling out and drifting across the Western arm of the galaxy. “Perhaps.”

*~*~*

Hux returned to the Finalizer and waited, reading and strategizing, playing games of holochess against the chip embedded in the unit. He lost more than he won at first, but after a while he caught the knack of outwitting it. The computer could calculate but it could not learn – to its primitive mind, Hux’s sacrifices looked unaccountably like surrender.

When he got word that Kylo Ren was incoming on a shuttle he went personally to receive him in the landing bay.

“Welcome aboard, Lord Ren.”

He could not see Ren’s expression behind the mask, but the several beats’ pause before he spoke betrayed his bemusement at the uncharacteristically respectful term of address. “General. I see you have recovered your spirits.”

“Indeed, Ren. I trust you have new orders for me from the Supreme Leader?”

“Nothing besides that we are to wait. There are officers for you to take on, as well as a contingent of my knights. We will be called to a full debriefing when everything is in readiness.”

“Then I shall ensure all necessary repairs on equipment and instruct Captain Phasma to step up the daily drilling of the troops. Is there anything further you require?”

Another pause and hard stare directed through the mask’s blank visor. Hux could feel the curious tendrils of Ren’s mind probing outwards, a strange sensation like the tightening of a hatband around his brow. “Not right now,” he replied.

“Well, should anything arise, I am at your disposal.”

“Are you?” the vocoder could not hide the scepticism in Ren’s voice. “This is a welcome change, General.”

“I have had time to reflect that there is much to be gained by our cooperation; just as there is much to be lost by drawing out any blame or further antagonism.”

“You want us to be allies?”

“We should have been allies from the beginning, Ren. I am proposing we rectify the omission.”

There was another extended pause. “I’m not interested in words. I will believe in your offer when I see results.”

“As you wish.” Hux clicked his heels together and stepped backwards. Ren turned away with a swirl of his long robes and made his way down the central aisle of the hangar bay.

To have Ren’s curiosity was something, Hux reflected, but he would have to work quickly. From the information Ren had provided it seemed the Supreme Leader planned to send them out separately – Hux would in all likelihood find himself again at the new empire’s frontier, commanding take-overs of worlds of strategic value. If Ren’s merry band of henchmen had been sent for, Snoke had some dark side business in hand. Perhaps he would send them to retrieve the scavenger girl who had so inexplicably bested his star pupil; or perhaps Skywalker was still a priority. Then again, perhaps it was something else entirely – some mystical feat designed to further test his apprentice’s loyalty.

Hux thought and came to a drastic conclusion – his best chance at winning over Ren was to draw him in with a proposal that was frankly absurd in its daring and scale. His own former parting words came back to haunt him: _that I learn the novelty of reckless self-indulgence as you learn that of discipline_. He was more prophetic than he knew.  

*~*~*

The Knights of Ren arrived over the course of the next few days. It was not the first time Hux had quartered them aboard one of his destroyers, but as they were under Kylo Ren’s exclusive command, Hux had never so much as spoken to them or learned their names (if they had names). They were silent, lurking presences that tended to make the rest of the crew uneasy. Hux had overheard two petty officers on the bridge speaking in hushed whispers that the knights had either taken vows of silence that they were on pain of death to keep (there was some debate about whether in such a case they would be executed by Ren, or simply throw themselves upon their various deadly weapons in remorse); or that the Supreme Leader had forced them to cut out their own tongues in a show of loyalty.

When all six of his followers had arrived, Ren called for an official exhibition of their combined skills. In his memo to Hux on the subject he noted how it would strengthen the morale of the troops after their recent setback, impressing them with the _true_ might of the First Order. Hux suspected this was intended to irk him, but wrote back in the warmest terms to express his agreement and eager anticipation of the event. Thus, at the appointed time, Hux took his seat next to Phasma in a high gallery overlooking the main hangar, the floor space of which had been cleared of vehicles for the occasion. Stormtroopers had been filed in, orderly row by row, to serve as audience. The Knights of Ren cut through their ranks and took their place in the expanse that was to serve as a combat arena, standing back to back in a circle, heads bowed and weapons shouldered.

“What do they imagine they look like?” Phasma quipped. “Lothalian gladiators?”

Hux struggled not to smile as he murmured his reply. “Come now, Captain. Ren assures me this will be very good for morale.”

Phasma let out a snort that came out as a burst of static through her mask. “Yes, Kylo Ren: renowned expert in the winning of hearts and minds.”

“Which is your favourite?” Hux asked. “I’m partial to the one with the ridiculous halberd.”

“Personally, I’m rooting for Cleaver – Halberd is definitely compensating for something.”

“Do you imagine it took Ren a long time to collect the full set?”

“We don’t know that it _is_ a full set. Maybe there’s some ultra-rare figure he hasn’t got yet and that’s why he’s always in such a bad temper.”

Their irreverent commentary was cut short by the action below finally commencing. Each knight in turn came forward and demonstrated some forms, the use and range of their weapon. Then they faced one another in pairs, bowing slightly to their matched opponents before engaging in a sparring session that seemed alarmingly fast and brutal. Finally, Ren himself deigned to enter the ring. Hux felt a shiver run up his spine at the sound of Ren’s lightsaber igniting; the crackle and hum of it was not like other examples of the weapon he had seen in recordings. He suspected, but did not know for sure, that Ren’s saber used a kyber crystal that was flawed or cracked. As he assumed Ren had the ability to obtain a better crystal, it seemed the choice was deliberate – it was certainly fitting, a reflection of the instability at Ren’s centre, the fissure where once Ben Solo had been.

Ren spun his weapon backhand and forehand; it cut through the air with a threatening drone. Hux considered what it must look like to their enemies: this immensely tall, wraithlike figure with no face, advancing with an executioner’s blade. _It must be abjectly terrifying_ , he thought. _It must seem like Fate_.

“His form has improved,” Phasma noted, grudging approval in her voice. “He’s lighter on his feet, too.”

Ren had been a formidable warrior before, of course, but vicious and lacking in control. Now he moved with graceful economy, his body seeming to flow like water. He took on all six of his knights at once; they fell in waves to his weapon and the repulsions of the Force. For all his brutal efficiency it was clear he was holding back. He allowed his weapon to crackle and singe at the knights’ outer clothing, but he did not strike or injure them. When the exhibition had proceeded to Ren’s apparent satisfaction he held up a hand. The knights drew backwards and some picked themselves off the floor. They formed one line and bowed deeply to their leader, who acknowledged the gesture with a nod of his masked head, then turned towards the central gallery where Hux and Phasma sat. Hux rose to his feet and stretched out his hand before folding his arm across his chest: the First Order salute. As Phasma rose and lifted a fist in signal the stormtroopers gave a unified stamp and roar of celebration.

“Glory to the First Order,” Hux called, projecting his voice to carry in the vast, echoing space. “Glory to its great champions, the Knights of Ren.”

Ren, who had been standing with his feet planted apart and hands clasped behind his back, moved to a pose of attention and returned the salute.

“Kriff _me_ ,” Phasma muttered. “Have you seen him do that before?”

“Never.” Hux gripped the railing and watched as Ren led his knights away. When they were gone, Phasma gave the signal for the troopers to begin filing out and return to their posts. Hux turned to where Lieutenant Mitaka stood at a respectful distance and summoned him with a flick of his wrist. “Go to Lord Ren for me and offer him my heartiest congratulations regarding today’s performance. Request that he join me in my quarters at his earliest convenience.”

Mitaka paled at the prospect. “And if he asks what it is regarding?”

Hux smiled placidly. “Regarding our service of a common cause, of course.”

*~*~*

“Well?” Ren demanded as the doors to Hux’s outer chambers closed behind him with a hiss. He had dispensed with his helmet and his complexion looked more sallow than when Hux had last seen him. His scar had faded to a shiny pink and there were dark circles beneath his eyes.  

“Ah, thank-you for joining me. Will you have a drink?” Hux gestured to the decanters in his reception area.

“I’m not in the mood for hospitality. Whatever is lurking in that sarlacc pit of a mind of yours, out with it.”

“No place for the art of small talk on the Dark Side’s curriculum, I see.” Hux smiled at Ren in a manner he had been reliably informed was ‘unnerving’.

“ _Hux_.”

“It’s an idle curiosity, really.” Hux turned towards the viewport, clasping his hands behind his back. “Tell me something, Ren. If a person were to shield their thoughts from one such as yourself, how would the Force-user experience that?”

Hux watched the reflection of Ren’s pale face working. “To seek to penetrate the mind of someone truly strong – well, it would be like slamming against a barrier. Why, do you think you can learn to hide things from me?”

“The Force-user would be aware, then, that there was something concealed?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And are there no more subtle methods? For instance, should a Force-user dissent from their peers, how would they guard those heretical thoughts without alerting suspicion?”

Ren narrowed his eyes. “Why Hux, you almost begin to interest me. You’re correct that there is another way beyond simple shielding. A controlled mind would be able to hide or camouflage certain thoughts behind more… insistent ones. It is not something a civilian could easily master.”

“Not even if the civilian were taught by an extremely powerful Force-user?”

“Careful, Hux. Your ‘idle curiosity’ seems to be skating close to treason.”

“Very well,” Hux turned to face him directly. “I will be open with you. I have come to fear that the Supreme Leader does not share our objectives, Ren.”

“ _Our_ objectives?”

“Restoring order to the galaxy, destroying the last tattered remnants of the Resistance and their Jedi champions, consolidating our ultimate power. We are agreed on all that, are we not, Ren?”

“You dare to suggest Supreme Leader Snoke is not?”

“Snoke is cut from the same cloth as the Emperor that was – political power is just a game to him. Haven’t you noticed that he builds up his enemies and undercuts his own forces? It is his intention to draw out this self-glorifying conflict. To him we are nothing more than dejarik pieces, moved about for his amusement.” 

“Ah,” said Ren. “Now I _understand_. What makes you think I would betray the Supreme Leader to throw my lot in with yours?”

“Because it is just a matter of time. You will rise up against Snoke eventually – that is your Dark Side way, is it not, that the apprentice must surpass the master? Perhaps you plan to cleave close to him and enjoy his protection until such a time as you fancy your powers superior to his. But if you do wait until the last possible moment, he will be expecting your betrayal and it will be too late. _Now_ is the time for action and you need an ally, Ren – you need a strategist.”

“You think too much of your own abilities.”

“Perhaps you think too little of your own. What I saw today was a being at the height of his powers; one who has nothing further to learn. Why cringe in the shadows? You are ready for so much more.”

“More? To exchange a great and powerful master for _you_?”

“Do you know why you and I are so effective in the service of the Supreme Leader? Because we are complementary: I am reason and you are passion; I am organization and you are spontaneity; I am the builder and you are the destroyer. Do you think it was an accident that we became rivals in his favour? He intended it that way. He has always known how dangerous we would be if united.”

“You expect me to believe that in your mind we are equals?”

“I am not interested in point-scoring, Ren. I am not interested in petty one-upmanship. I wish only for stability, for someone who understands my mission.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Freedom. I will not command you, I will open my resources to you. Eliminate the Jedi, do as you please.”  

Ren shook his head as if to dismiss the alluring prospect. “Snoke would sense our alliance.”

“Undoubtedly. As you have said, we could not entirely conceal it. We could, however, change something in its presentation.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Then search my thoughts.”

Ren raised his hand, fingers twitching and contracting. Hux showed him triumph, first: regiments of stormtroopers all marching in perfect formation and worlds upon worlds of rippling First Order flags. He showed him a fortress the size of a planet near the Galaxy’s bright centre. Then he showed him bare skin and entwined limbs, Ren’s own pale form holding down a pinker, more freckled one. The shock forced Ren back into his own mind; he blinked rapidly at Hux.

“Interesting,” he said, voice carefully flat.

“But?”

“But it won’t work. Imaginary scenarios can’t mask a true memory or intention.”

“I’m sorry, was I unclear? That was not an example, it was a proposition.”

“Oh,” said Ren; a low, falling intonation. Then, with some anger: “ _no_. Hux, this is ridiculous!”

“Am I not your type, Ren? You are very much mine.” Hux let a hunger come into his eyes that he was sure Ren had never had directed at him before, awkward priestly figure such as he was.

“I’m leaving,” Ren announced. “This conversation didn’t happen.”

“Ah, but it did.” To the other man’s retreating back, Hux added: “and Lord Ren? You have automatic security clearance for all of my rooms. I thought you might like to know.”

Ren did not quite stumble on his way out into the corridor, but his gait was considerably less regular and sure than it had been on his approach. As the doors closed behind him, Hux crossed to the cabinet and poured himself a measure of brandy with hands that were very faintly trembling. He had made his opening gambit; now it was Ren’s turn to move.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I know I promised porn in this chapter but it turns out it's harder to get Ren into bed than I thought it would be. SOON.
> 
> Ancient Jedi koans brought to you via folk rock troubadour Donovan. The Force moves in mysterious ways.


	3. Chapter 3

Hux returned to his quarters, hanging his greatcoat on the hook just inside the door. As the lights flickered from their standby dimness to full power, he caught sight of a tall, black figure seated against the far wall of the room.

“Mother of—!”

Kylo Ren rose to his feet. “General, you should be more aware of your surroundings. If I were a Resistance fighter you would already be dead.” He was wearing his mask, which Hux took to be a less than promising sign.

“Ren, when I said you had access to my rooms, I didn’t mean for you to take it as an invitation to lurk around in my absence. What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

“You will excuse me if I make myself comfortable? I have had a rather trying day.” Hux went to the cabinet and poured himself a drink, then threw himself down on the sectional seating arrangement that Ren had just risen from. He stared at the interloper over the rim of the glass as he took a first sip. “Yes?”

“Your proposition.”

“What about it?”

“I have some reservations.”

Hux raised his eyebrows. “Only some? Very well, go on.”

“ _Some_ of what you said had merit. Not all of it.” Ren clasped his hands behind his back and half turned to gaze out the viewport. “Why did you say that I am the destroyer?” Somehow, even though the mask, he sounded perplexed, wounded even. “It’s hypocritical. I have killed a few hundred, perhaps; you have murdered more than _twenty billion_. What absolves you?”

“Absolves? Nothing. I do not require absolution. What are twenty billion to a galaxy? A few grains of sand in the desert. Starkiller Base was tool designed to enable us to make surgical strikes; to cripple the Republic and to obviate the need for further conflict.” Hux crossed his legs at the knee, booted foot flexing idly. “I did not intend it as a criticism when I said you were the destroyer. Before any great structure is built, the foundations must be levelled and cleared. You know how to find those who are most dangerous to us, how to eliminate them in the most brutal and personal way. You are the reason no-one will dare stand against us; not now, not ever.”

“Is that what I am to you, an attack dog to put on a leash?”

“I would have said a _scourge_ , but it is one of the things you are. Whatever else you would be in our new empire we can negotiate.”

“But _you_ would rule?”

“I would be the figurehead, the one on the throne. That role fits me better than it does you, don’t you agree?”

“How do I know you won’t betray me once I’ve gotten you what you want?”

“Ren, by the time we’re finished you’ll be the last Force-user left alive in the galaxy. Who do you imagine I could send to kill or restrain you?” Hux smiled slowly and raised his glass towards Ren. “Besides, I like the symmetry. An emperor and his knight-protector, just as it was in your grandfather’s day.”

“How will we do it? Defeat the Supreme Leader, I mean.”

Hux tapped his own temple. “That is classified at present. We must wait until Snoke reveals the next stage of his enterprise.”

“You mean you don’t have a real plan yet?”

“I mean I have an array of plans. Which to take forward is dependent on Snoke’s next move.”

Ren pointed an admonitory finger. “You’d better be certain, and don’t underestimate him. You don’t know what he does to those who betray him.”

“What’s the matter Ren – don’t tell me you’re still afraid of dark side daddy?”

“Shut your mouth, Hux! You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ren paced towards the viewport and back again, agitated. “You haven’t had him inside your head. Not really. You don’t know what he’s capable of. What he can make _you_ capable of.”

“I know enough. I have my own sources of intelligence both within and outside the First Order, and believe me when I say my research is thorough.” Hux swirled the amber liquor in this glass and stared at it contemplatively for a moment before he looked back up at Ren. When he spoke again it was more softly and without his usual ironical sting. “I know this: he lured you when you were just a child and made you dependent on him. He made you think you were weak and that he alone could make you strong. He took you apart – scraped out your mind to make you an empty vessel he could fill with his so-called wisdom. But like all megalomaniacs, his weakness is his arrogance, and I believe he didn’t do what he intended well enough. After everything, you still feel that pull to the light.”

“No!” Ren’s yell must have been deafening inside the mask, which spat static, and his hand twitched towards where his saber hung at his side. “I am no longer weak! I have been _perfected_!”

“Calm yourself,” Hux raised a staying hand. “Again, it’s not a criticism.”

“What?”

“Think about it. If you were really ‘perfected’ according to _his_ design, you would be a mindless puppet. Your rage, your volatility – even your fear – these are not flaws, Ren, they are vital signs.”

Ren stared for a long moment, the heaving of his chest gradually subsiding. Hux could almost hear his thoughts ticking over – the push-pull of desire and trepidation, hope and dread. When Ren spoke again his artificially modulated voice had also regained its even keel: “even if I believed what you say, it doesn’t mean we can defeat him.”

Hux made a sound of derision. “Just think about it – if he’s so all-powerful, why does he need _you_? I mean, come now Ren – you don’t believe he put more than a decade into training you because you’re so easily dispensable, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“Good then, we’re agreed: you are needed. Without you, he is substantially weakened. That’s a good first step.”

“You say you have plans,” Ren said, head turning to face him directly. “So I’m just supposed to trust you?”

“That is the general idea of an alliance, yes. Mutually assured interests versus mutually assured destruction: I know which option I prefer.” Hux took another sip of his drink, letting the strong spirits trickle over his tongue. “Now, have I answered all your concerns?”

Ren folded his arms over his chest. “What about the other thing?”

“Hmm?”

“What you showed me in the vision. You _know_.”

“Oh, you mean the misdirection – that we pretend to be lovers?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not hearing a question, Ren.”

“We would…” Ren trailed off. Hux could feel his frustration, but he waited, feeling infinitely patient. He only wished that he could see Ren’s face as he struggled for the words to express his desires, which doubtless rested on a knife-edge between rage and humiliation. He wondered what terms Ren was considering and rejecting: _have intercourse, make love, lie together_ —

“We would fuck?”

 _Ah, trust Ren to go for the most tactless and aggressive option._ “Yes, that is the general idea.”

“When?”

“I’m ready when you are.” Hux rose to his feet and moved towards the drinks cabinet, passing close by Ren who took a reflexive step backwards and then tried to mask the movement by adjusting his gloves.

“What does it involve?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“What do you like?” Hux raised his chin and looked into the mask’s black visor, but Ren stayed silent, revealing nothing. “Perhaps you don’t know,” he ventured, lowering his voice. “Are you a virgin, Ren? It’s alright if you are – I can be patient.” There came the straining, buzzing sound and feeling of intense compression that happened when Ren’s anger dilated outwards through the Force. The light panels flickered and the metal fixtures in the room began to squeak as if they were being unscrewed. Hux felt a twist of fear as the tension peaked, spots dancing in his vision, but then it ebbed away.

“Well,” Hux said, unstoppering the decanter and pouring himself another drink. “It seems you still have a few things to make up your mind about. I’m afraid I can’t stay up to keep you company – but as you showed yourself in, I’m sure you can find your way back out. Goodnight, Ren.”

Without sparing a backwards look at the other man, Hux opened the interior doors and proceeded down the short corridor to his bedroom. Once inside, he left the lights there on a low illumination, sighing wearily as he placed his glass upon the nightstand and started to undress. He first unfastened his belt and outer tunic, shrugging them off and draping the garments across a chair. Next, his boots came off and he luxuriated in the sensation of the cool, circulated air across his naked feet.

At the sound of a quiet creak, Hux turned on his heel to find Ren standing in the doorway, now maskless. He had adopted a stiff, upright stance and did not seem to know what to do with his face, which had taken on a strange, frozen expression that seemed to require great effort on his part to maintain. His eyes, however, were dark and shining – he looked eager and just a little fearful.

Hux shrugged his suspenders off his shoulders. “Are you coming in?”

Ren stepped over the threshold and the door hissed shut behind him. “You do this a lot.” It was not quite a question, more something Ren seemed to be daring him to contradict. “Casual assignations,” he clarified.

“I’ve had some. Not on post, though.”

“How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That I wouldn’t refuse you.”

“I had to trust to intuition. I suppose that’s like the Force for us laymen.” Hux reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, stiff from hours bent over a console, and slowly rolled his head from side to side. “Well?”

Ren’s face twitched, a momentary baring of his teeth. Then, out of his body’s forced stillness there came a startling burst of movement; his long body uncoiling in a predatory strike. He crossed the space between them in one long stride and jostled Hux against the wall of his quarters, curling in on himself to kiss him. It seemed as if Ren approached sex as he did everything else in his strange, tortured life – headlong, as if he was daring himself to do it and thought that any delay would be taken as proof of fear. 

Hux had imagined how this would go, but somehow he had forgotten to imagine Ren’s broad, sensual mouth working against his own and the alien warmth of someone else’s saliva. He didn’t expect to be kissed at all, in fact – the last person he ever kissed was that boy from the academy (the taste of Hux’s lips went with _him_ to his grave).

He felt a subtle pressure in his head, then Ren hummed into the kiss, a soft, intrigued sound. He pulled back, tugging Hux’s bottom lip back with him until it popped from between both of his own. “Why are you thinking about that? A dead cadet?”

Hux tried to blank out his thoughts. “Just a strange flit of the mind.”

Ren’s hand rested against the wall next to Hux’s cheek, his fingers twitched and Hux felt the more insistent tug. Ren’s eyes grew brighter with interest. “He was the only one. The only one you could be with as an equal.”

“He wasn’t my equal. He was cowardly and incompetent.”

He smiled, taunting. “You loved him.”

“I did not,” Hux said. “You’re fishing, Ren – enough of your little parlour tricks.”

“No,” Ren amended thoughtfully, tilting his head to one side, tugging harder, “you’ve never loved anyone. You don’t think you can. People are so weak, they always disappoint you.” His eyes flickered. “Oh, or they _leave_ you. You were so lonely, a little child so far from civilization, and there was… so much shouting, so much indignity, no place to find comfort.”

“Get out, Ren.” It was a horrible sensation, like someone sticking a finger deep into the canal of his ear, or nose, an intrusion into the very crenulations of his brain, where nothing foreign should be able to fit.

Ren was still enjoying himself; he was a gleeful schoolyard bully to whom the fates had so unwisely granted powers of near-omniscience. “Everyone remembers _Brendol_ so fondly. A clever, charming man – even his enemies agree. His son is weak stuff, no charisma. He can learn speeches but he can’t hold a conversation. Who would follow _him_?”

Hux drew back his hand and struck Ren with as much force as he could muster. The mark showed white on Ren’s speckled, sallow cheek, then quickly reddened. Ren took a step back and stared at him wildly. He seemed shocked, exhilarated – surprised at his own daring, and Hux’s.

“Don’t do that again,” Hux told him, voice cold with tightly-controlled fury. “Come in my mind when I invite you, and not before, or this is going to be a very short-lived and singularly disastrous alliance.”

“Yes,” Ren’s ribcage heaved with his excited breaths. All of this – the dangerous closeness, the physical, intimate spite, is a revelation to him. “I’ll do what you say.”

A thought occurred to Hux then that he had miscalculated somewhere. He had offered Ren freedom, but that was not what Ren wanted – freedom from Snoke, yes, but not a total, dizzying lack of authority and structure. Kylo Ren was an invented person, little more than a collection of wild impulses that occasionally coalesced into something approaching a functioning persona. There was just not enough substance there to hold together on its own – Ren needed scaffolding. Then there was the way Ren was looking at him now – eyes fever-bright. He was like a child who had been told of a new, exciting game and was very impatient to have someone sketch out the rules so he could begin to play.

“Good,” Hux said. “Now can you control yourself enough to be a courteous bedfellow, or shall I send you away until you learn better manners?”

“I can – I… tell me what to do.”

“Undressing would be a good start.” Hux went to the bed and pulled his white undershirt over his head, pushed down his breeches and underwear and tossed them towards the rest of his discarded uniform. He sat on the edge of his mattress and turned to regard Ren, who was still swathed in close-fitting black up to his jawline. “Go on,” he prompted.

Ren threw him one last suspicious look, as if he suspected it was all a trick, then turned his back to undress. He stripped off his clothing in a singularly brusque and unalluring fashion – Hux would have to make him work on that.

“Here,” Hux said when he was finished, beckoning him with an imperious twitch of his fingers. When Ren made to climb onto the mattress Hux tutted and reached out to give the back of his thigh a sharp slap. “Ah-ah. The bed is for good boys.”

Ren made a strange sound in the back of his throat – as if he was trying to project outrage and an entirely different emotion had surfaced instead. “Hux—”

“Down here where I can look at you,” Hux pointed to the space between his spread thighs. Ren paused, one hand on the metal railing that ran along the upper storage area of the berth. He took a long breath and folded to his knees on the carpeted floor. He cupped his hands over his crotch, as if he thought Hux wouldn’t notice his big, ungainly cock curving up towards his stomach.

Hux rested his hands on Ren’s shoulders, and gazed down at his long torso. He was well toned but lean – with his height he would never really be bulky. Gazing into his face, Hux considered that Ren was striking, but certainly not conventionally attractive. He thought about the young Ben Solo, who must have been even more gangly and odd-looking before he grew into those distinctive features. He briefly wondered what the other children in Ben’s community had selected to tease him about (for children were always unerring in their cruelty): his big, turned-out ears, no doubt, and his nose. Perhaps the dark, irregular beauty marks that dotted his pale skin, or his weak, feminine chin. This close, Hux could see that Ren’s eyes were heterochromatic, wavy-edged pools of darker colouring encircling his pupils.

With one fingertip, Hux traced the line of his newly-healed scar from forehead down to his right cheek. “Do you imagine people find you handsome, Ren?”

Ren managed not to flinch, but Hux could feel the tension in the muscles of his neck, where his fingertips were now idly stroking. “I don’t care what others think.”

“You’re rather ugly and disproportionate, really. Is that why you wear the mask?”

“No,” he glared up at Hux defiantly. “Who are you to talk – _you_ look like a drowned corpse.”

Hux laughed, tugged at a handful of Ren’s hair, knuckles grazing the nape of his neck. “Do I?”

“Yes. You’re bloodless and cold.”

“I’ll have you know this look is rather sought after in certain corners of the galaxy.”

Ren sneered up at him. “I’ll bet.”

“Still,” Hux said meditatively, trailing his thumb along Ren’s bottom lip, “homely as you are, I can’t believe no-one’s ever thought to use your sulky, cock-sucking mouth.” Ren’s eyes widened and he inhaled sharply, letting his lips part around the tip of Hux’s thumb, warm, wet tongue flexing against the pad. “Oh, you like that idea? Well, at least we’re getting somewhere.” When he felt Ren’s palms come to rest on his knees, Hux gave him another light slap. “Ah-ah! I didn’t say you could touch me with your big, clumsy paws. Put them behind your back.”

Ren breathed through his nose and glared traitorously at Hux before lifting his hands away and crossing his wrists behind his curved back.

“Good.” Hux raised one arm and gripped the edge of the shelving unit above him, tangling his other hand in Ren’s hair. He leaned back to bring his half-hard dick to Ren’s attention. “Show me you’re a fast learner, and mind your teeth.”

Ren went to it with his usual haste and something-to-prove determination – he licked the length of its underside first before suckling at the tip, moaning at either the taste or his general excitement concerning his own abject shame. Hux slid his fingers into Ren’s hair, cupping the back of his neck, and urged him to go deeper. He revelled at the humming and swallowing sounds Ren made, the little catch when he was just on the edge of gagging.

Despite Ren’s obvious lack of experience and finesse, Hux found his arousal building quickly. He sat back and tugged Ren’s hair to get him to surface. Ren blinked up at him with his wet, reddened mouth open and Hux strongly considered just pulling him back down and completely losing it. Instead, he took Ren’s chin in one hand and leaned down to press a kiss to the side of his lips.

“Good boy,” he said. Ren made another sound of helpless pleasure and Hux reflected that he was undoubtedly correct in his theory that this was the only person he had ever met to crave both praise and humiliation in equal measure. “Do you know what this means?”

Ren wiped his mouth with his arm. “I can get on the bed?”

“Only if you ask nicely.”

“Please. Can I get on the bed?”

“‘Can’ denotes ability, Ren, not permission.”

Ren scowled. “May I get on the bed. Please.”

Hux kissed his turned-down mouth to placate him. “You may.” He stood and gave Ren space to clamber into the berth. “Lie back now. Ah-ah,” Hux slapped away a reaching hand as he straddled Ren’s thighs, “I still didn’t say you could touch. Hands behind your head.”

Ren scowled again before complying. His muscles jumped and twitched under Hux’s palms as he stroked his way up and down Ren’s torso. Ren’s pectorals and shoulders were well developed, the lines of his body tapering down to a narrow, almost feminine waist. “It’s really a shame, you know, that no-one’s ever thought to seduce you before – a strapping lad with such a big, eager cock. I haven’t even touched it yet and look – look what a mess you are.” Hux dragged his fingers through the trail of precome that had dripped onto his taut belly, very slightly grazing the leaking tip with his thumb.

“Hux,” Ren shifted his hips, desperate for some contact, “do something you horrible little sadist.”

“Mm. From what I hear I’m a bloodless corpse, and as such incapable of warmth or pity, I would have thought.”

Ren let out a shaky breath. “I take it back.”

“Oh?”

“You’re… very warm.”

Hux laughed. “Alright, I suppose that’s a start.” He leaned down and reached for the bedside drawer, where he kept some unscented lotion. As he did so, he felt Ren’s stomach muscles shake as he raised himself and pressed a scattering of hot little kisses to Hux’s jawline and throat. His dark hair smelled like hot plastic and the faintly medicinal standard-issue soap. Bottle grasped in one hand, Hux braced his arms either side of Ren’s head and gave himself over to kissing him. Ren was still sloppy and imprecise at this but there was an eagerness Hux could not help but find flattering. He did not even have the will to chide Ren when he started to rut against Hux, grunting into his mouth.

Gathering his resolve, Hux laid his fingers against Ren’s cheek and gave a few last lingering pecks, then sat back again. “I’m going to use my hands on you this time – is that what you want?”

“Anything,” Ren groaned, thick, dark lashes fluttering against his cheeks. “Do fucking anything to me.”

“Well,” Hux said, feeling excitement and possibility coil low in his belly. “That’s quite an offer.” He poured out the lotion into his palm and lined up their cocks, grasping them both together (as much as he could get his hands around) and moving in slow, twisting strokes from base to tip. His hips ground downwards in tight circles, pulling gasps and curses from Ren. The whole thing was almost juvenile in its simplicity – Hux thought of those early trysts with the cadet, quickly banishing the memory before it could register as more than a flicker.

Ren came before he did, but it was a close-enough run thing. Delicious sensation climbed from the tips of Hux’s toes all the way to his loins, his thighs trembled; his chest and throat flushed bright red as Ren gazed up at him, his belly and chest spattered with their mingled come. Hux panted, resisted the urge to just collapse down on top of Ren and gathered himself enough to lean sideways and grab his discarded undershirt and give them both a perfunctory cleaning off. Then Ren grasped his elbow, tugging hard, and Hux went, crashing down onto the mattress and becoming quickly tangled in the sheets and Ren’s long, speckled limbs. Ren huffed his breath in Hux’s still flushed and overheated face, kissed his forehead and the bridge of his nose and tried to gather him still closer.

“Off,” Hux said, flapping his hand against Ren’s shoulder as if trying to tap out of a wrestling pin. Ren groaned his displeasure and relaxed his grip, but did not do anything more helpful.  

Hux clambered from the bed and padded over to one of the storage alcoves, rummaging around in the near-dark for the objects he sought. As he returned to the bed he looked at Ren, who was lying in a sort of semi-circular sprawl, one arm behind his head, his knees bent to one side and Hux’s once perfectly tucked and straightened sheets wrapped loosely about his lower half. Hux had thought of him as a man who would likely flee from the scene of his sexual indiscretions at the earliest opportunity, but he appeared relaxed and comfortable, as if this were his room and Hux was the intruder. Hux eased himself back into the warm space he had vacated and Ren immediately filled in the gaps, throwing a leg over Hux’s and rolling over so his chest was pressed against Hux’s side.

Hux ignored this objectionable incursion into his personal space and continued with his previous activities. He clicked open the silver cigarra tin and inhaled deeply, then regretfully closed it and placed it on his stomach. He next turned his attention to fiddling with the delicate mechanisms of an electronic vaporizer, shaking up the liquid inside before he placed it to his lips and inhaled the disappointingly scentless cloud. Ren was watching him, dark eyes full of curiosity. He reached over and took the cigarra tin and inspected it, running his fingers over the engraving on its surface.

“Hmm, carababba tabac?”

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a smoker, Ren.”

“No, someone I knew. Someone Ben knew,” he amended. “An uncle, of sorts.” He watched a spiral of vapour drift from between Hux’s lips. “Do you miss it?”

“The real thing? Sometimes, but not even I have the authority to override the onboard smoke alarms.”

“Why did you start?”

“Hmm? Oh, it was at the academy. I don’t know why, really – I probably thought it was very grown-up. Now that I come to think of it, perhaps it’s just my way of managing that human urge towards self-destruction.”

“You think all humans want to destroy themselves?”

“To a more or lesser degree. Let’s imagine a scale, where I am sitting comfortably at one and you’re at around an eight-point-five – on a good day.”

“You’re the one proposing that we take on a man of almost limitless power and resources.”

“Alright, maybe I’m closer to two or three.”

Ren was amused by this, Hux felt the exhalation of breath against his neck and shivered.  

“You don’t mind talking about your past now?” Hux observed. “When you were Ben Solo?”

“That wasn’t _me_ , but I don’t mind talking about it.”

“How do you rationalize that, exactly? All this you-but-not-you business?”

“I don’t think that I sprang into being from nothing. I think of Ben as a vessel, of sorts, a larval stage.”

“And now you’re a beautiful butterfly?” Hux smiled lazily. “Or a moth, maybe?”

“I have completed my training. I have fully dedicated myself to the dark side.”

“What did you have to do, anyway? Burn down an orphanage?”

Ren’s brow furrowed. “It wasn’t like that. I was alone in the dark. Visions came to me. I stopped all my vital processes with the Force – I died and was reborn.”

 _So you sat in a cave and hallucinated?_ Hux thought. That was an anti-climax. “I see.”

Ren made a contemptuous sound. “No you don’t.”   

Hux transferred the vaporiser to his left hand and with his right he leaned over for his brandy glass. He took a grateful gulp, then lay back on the mattress, resting the glass on the centre of his chest, over his heart. Ren quirked an eyebrow at this and made a noise that expressed something like amusement.

“What?” Hux demanded, sleepy and irritated.

“I didn’t think you were a man who needed to numb himself.”

“It’s not like that – I think better after one measure, sleep better after two.” Hux lifted the glass and held it towards Ren, raising an eyebrow in enquiry. “Is it forbidden for you?”

“Nothing is forbidden to the dark side.”

Hux rolled his eyes, watched as Ren took a deep, sucking swallow. He was too good at controlling his reflexes to sputter or choke, but he didn’t exactly look like he enjoyed the taste. He passed back the now-empty glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“That stuff’s expensive, you know,” Hux told him. “The idea is to savour it.”

“Mff,” Ren grumbled, rolling onto his back and hip-checking Hux as if he thought he was in the way.

“I take it you’re staying the night, then?”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, but I’m getting up at oh-five-hundred – try not to Force-explode the chrono when it goes off.” Hux sat back against the pillows and clacked the butt of the vaporiser around between his teeth as he thought. “We need to make time for the mind-shielding sessions. Are you free between seventeen and eighteen-hundred?” Hux waited, but there was no answer. “Ren?”

Ren made an obnoxious snuffling noise and then snored.

Hux gave a put-upon sigh, entirely for his own benefit, then switched off his vaporiser and put all the paraphernalia aside. He lowered himself cautiously back onto the mattress and tried to find a position that was relatively comfortable and required minimum contact with Ren, who twitched in his sleep and gave off as much heat as a small sun. In this moment, Hux was very grateful for his lifetime of military training – _if there is one thing a soldier knows, it is how to fall asleep in difficult circumstances_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello, [I have a tumblr now](http://www.kdazrael.tumblr.com). You might be thinking I am too cool to hang out, but I assure you that I am not.


	4. Chapter 4

Hux moved at a fast clip down the corridors of the lower deck training complex, making the sharp turns that would take him to the area that had been reserved for the exclusive use of Ren and his knights. The sector doors were closed, but Hux punched in a master code to unlock them. The doors slid back to reveal a bare, high-ceilinged space that was lit with unforgiving brightness. At the far end of the room was another door, this one already open, and through this aperture Hux could see a two tall, dark figures twisting and leaping across the floor, casting flickering, knife-thin shadows as they feinted and parried.

Between Hux and the far door there were five masked figures. They were clad in varying shades of grey and black and there was a sort of aesthetic harmony in the lines and fabrics of their uniforms (if uniforms they were). They all had a sort of underlying scruffiness, each component seeming to have been put together haphazardly, or fashioned out of remnants: an oversized buckle here, a ragged hem there.

The Knights of Ren had been at ease when Hux entered, two leaning up against the far wall, on either side of the doorway, two others hunkered down and one seated upon the floor. Apparently they were awaiting their turn facing their leader in the far room. They all had a blank stillness that was like that of a deactivated droid. When Hux took his first step into the room, his presence sent a palpable shock through all five of them: those that had been sitting leapt to their feet, while those that had been leaning straightened and adopted a wide-based stance that suggested battle-readiness.

“I am General Hux, commander of this vessel,” Hux said, aware as he did so that this information was probably redundant. The knights moved as a pack, drawing closer and fanning out into a semi-circle. “I must speak with Lord Ren.”

Hux looked from masked face to face; although they were all different in stature and dress the monochromatic sameness had a sort of disorientating effect, as if no matter how long he looked he would never remember each one perfectly. The knights kept their position, so he persisted: “if one of you would announce me, and make it clear to your master that this is a matter of urgency—”

No response. Hux stepped forward and the centremost of them – a knight whose sunken-cheeked mask resembled a skull and who wore a voluminous, rather priest-like mantle – stepped forward with his right foot and pushed out one palm towards Hux, holding his arm out straight and keeping it there perfectly still, the other arm folded flat against his chest. The gesture looked simultaneously aggressive and theatrical: it reminded Hux of a holo he had seen once of the traditional drama performed by humans on Naboo: it was a grand, costumed spectacle without words, only strange yells and trilling sounds. Dialogue came in the form of elaborate dances and arm movements, each of which bore a special significance that was immediately intelligible to the cultured natives (and entirely obscure to anyone else).

Recalling that this was the one who habitually wielded a halberd, Hux stared his aggressor down.  The knight continued to hold the ridiculous pose steady. Raising his voice, Hux declared: “may I remind you that you are all guests aboard this ship and use its resources at my discretion? Stand down and let me pass.” He stepped forward again and then staggered as his mind erupted in a series of alien images: a red mist and wordless screams that sounded like a warning; ropes, coiling around his torso and binding him so tightly he could not take a full breath; a wall, reaching up and up so high that its top could not be seen.

The next thing Hux knew he was grasping his head in both hands and there was the sound of rapid, heavy footsteps. Ren strode into view like an avenging spirit, his face unmasked and bearing an expression of righteous fury. He cast out his gloved hand and sent his offending follower sprawling upon the ground, where the knight lay twitching and jerking for a long moment, obviously in a great amount of pain. The others drew back towards the port-side wall, bowing their heads and clasping their hands together before them in a fashion that made them look bizarrely like scolded children. The sixth knight appeared in the doorway and took in the scene, then sidled around to join the flock.

Ren gazed dispassionately at the crumpled figure, then back up at Hux. “General, are you harmed?”

Hux rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “No, I think he… or she… _that one_ was just trying to communicate with me.” 

Ren gave a grunt of displeasure. “They know better than that.”

The knight on the floor moved to a kneeling position and orientated their body towards Ren, beginning another complex gesture. Ren cut off the appeal with the outstretched palm movement Hux had seen before, then turned his head and indicated Hux with a sharp, cutting motion of his hand.

The knight shuffled towards Hux on their knees, head bent down to their breast. They stopped just a pace away, clenching both hands into fists and bringing them down on their chest with a loud, percussive thump. They repeated this movement twice more and then unclenched their hands, raising them towards Hux and bringing them together in a cupping motion. The knight then became a living statue, holding the uncomfortable pose perfectly still.

Hux stared down at the figure in bewilderment. The being – whatever it was beneath those layers of thick fabric, leather and moulded plasteel – had an overpowering, distinctive odour, which Hux had not expected. Ren sometimes smelled of fresh sweat and the underlying goatish scent of testosterone, but he washed and changed uniforms regularly. The knight smelled _rank_ , like sour milk and old blood, and a host of other things that were foreign and thus mercifully nameless to Hux.

“Give them your hand,” Ren said, addressing Hux.

“I’d really rather not.”

“It is the proper form. They are offering you contrition – they may only rise when you grant forgiveness.”

“You are forgiven,” Hux told the figure kneeling before him. The knight remained frozen in place and Hux began to wonder if perhaps the creature – whatever species it was – did not speak Basic.

He glanced over at Ren, but the leader’s face was impassive. Slowly, with more trepidation than he would like to admit, Hux reached out placed his hand within the knight’s supplicant cupped ones. The knight held it delicately, then leaned down – so slowly Hux could hear every creak of their uniform – and pressed their masked forehead to the knuckles of Hux’s gloved hand. This accomplished, the knight released Hux from their grip and rose in one fluid movement, then turned retreated back into the bosom of their peers.

Ren moved to a stance with his feet wide apart and cut the air in a slashing, downward motion with his right hand. Each knight gave a shallow, identical bow and then filed silently from the room.

“Well,” said Hux as the doors hissed closed. “That was eerie.”

“They are unused to interacting with outsiders. Still, it was good for them to be corrected.”

“Don’t you risk alienating them with that kind of humiliation before a stranger?”

Ren gave one of his contemptuous ‘you know nothing of the ways of the Force’ looks. “Alienation is the point.”

“The point of what?”

“It’s a process of unbecoming. They have cast away their names and their histories. They no longer feel humiliation – if they did then it would mean that their training was incomplete.”

“And what, they’ve also cast away their right to shower?”

Ren cocked his head. “No, that’s just a preference among some of them.”

“Mother of moons, Ren, it’s a public health risk. Don’t you think you could sharply gesture them towards the sanitation block once in a while?”

“That’s none of my concern. Besides, it’s not so unusual – many cultures believe dirt is sacred, or that washing opens the body to weakness or infection. I think the one who so offended you believes that the layers of battle dirt and blood are some kind of talisman against defeat.”   

“You haven’t ever asked them?”

“Their vocabulary is limited. By the laws of the order, it is forbidden to communicate anything beyond the thirty-three forms. Using the Force to make contact with another mind is especially forbidden. That’s why I was so angry with the one who reached out to you.”

“Your order is a strict one indeed. Just what do they get in return for all this sacrifice?”

“Strength, training, and communion with the Force.”

Hux paused for a moment, arranging his thoughts to accommodate this new information. “To whom do they pledge their loyalty – Snoke?”

“No, only to the Master of the Knights of Ren – which is me.” Ren’s eyes, a warm hazel in the bright light, caught Hux’s and narrowed in understanding. “We can rely on them, when the time comes.”

Hux gave him a sceptical look. “How do you know they won’t betray you? Perhaps one would like to usurp your place.”

“Of course – every one of them would like to take my place, and it’s their right, at any time, to call me to an account. If they doubt my power or leadership, they can issue a direct challenge, fight me to the death, as I did my predecessor. None of them will though: I know their capabilities, they’re weak in the Force in comparison to me.”

Hux crossed his arms over his chest. “And I’m supposed to find that comforting?”

“You wanted to know are they loyal to me: they are. You shouldn’t ask me questions if you don’t want to believe my answers.”

“I do believe them,” Hux said, finding himself oddly chastened, “I’m rather agitated just now. I think you can guess why that might be.”

“Yes, he has called for us,” Ren nodded. “I felt it. It’s not before time – we are ready.”

“Are we?”

“I’m ready. And your mind is as well-prepared as I can make it.” Ren reached out and placed his gloved fingertips on either side of Hux’s face. Hux was used to the invasion by now, he didn’t flinch at the touch or the corresponding ripple of Ren’s curious consciousness through the forefront of this thoughts.

“Again,” Hux said, “I find this information somewhat less than comforting.”

“It’s not a bad mind, as far as it goes. You’re orderly and compartmentalised.” Ren’s index fingers rubbed circles on Hux’s temples. “When are we to appear before him?”

“Tomorrow, at his dawn.”

Ren gave one of his terrifying, exhilarated smiles. “Well, that just gives us time to create one more very vivid and recent memory.” His hands slid down Hux’s neck, across the span of his shoulders; one broke away and went to his waist, squeezing firmly.

Hux raised an eyebrow. “Oh, it’s essential to the mission, is it? Purely tactical fucking?”

“It’s better than occupying the time with anxious pacing, general. Besides, who knows when we’ll get another chance?”

 _Never_ , Hux thought and he saw Ren frown. He had become so accustomed to the tendrils of another’s mind that he forgot that was Ren in there – he wondered if Snoke’s mind would feel different, more foreign and invasive.

“Yes,” Ren said. “It’s distinctive. Cold and slippery.”

“Get out of there, Ren. You can have my body or my mind, but not both at the same time. It’s unseemly.”

Ren gave his seldom-heard raspy laugh. “ _Unseemly_ ,” he repeated, pleased. He pulled Hux closer and kissed him, pulling Hux up onto his toes and angling his mouth for better access. Ren was still a terrible, sloppy kisser: Hux had no idea why he even bothered responding to it.

“Go on.” Hux gave his shoulders a firm push. “You stink worse than one of your creepy little minions. Clean yourself up before you come to my quarters and perhaps I’ll consider—”

Ren did not let go, only grinned wider. “You _like_ me like this, you like that I’m disgusting and sweaty. I didn’t even have to read your mind to know that.” He turned his head and a cold, perspiration-soaked lock of hair brushed against Hux’s cheek; Hux shuddered helplessly. He felt a hot exhalation of breath and lips moving against his ear as Ren murmured: “When I’m drenched from the effort of fulfilling your battle orders, when I’m covered in the blood of our enemies, I will come to you, in triumph. I don’t think you will refuse me then.”

“Is that your morbid idea of seduction, Ren?”

“Don’t pretend it isn’t working. You love the idea that I’m your fierce animal to command.”

“ _Is_ that what you are?”

“Yes,” Ren murmured against his lips, kissed him again. “I’m your destroyer, all yours to command. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

It was what Hux had wanted, but actually having accomplished it was a phenomenon that somewhat outstripped his expectations. He managed to break from the circle of Ren’s arms and got in a deep breath. “Come along, _fierce animal_. I’ll let you use my refresher.”

*~*~*

Hux reclined naked in his bunk, datapad in hand as he typed in some last reports. The possibility of his own impending death was no excuse for sloppy admin, he felt. He heard the refresher door sliding open down the corridor and then Ren entered the bedroom with a towel around his waist – apparently for the sake of _modesty_ , which Hux found deeply amusing.

“I hate sonic showers,” Ren said, ruffling his clean, fluffy hair with one hand.

“I know you do, you prima donna. When they were renovating the quarters for you I had to sign off on all your _appointments_.”

“Well, they dry out your skin.”

“Poor Lord Ren. Such outrageous hardships he must endure.” Hux pulled open the bedside drawer and threw the bottle of lotion at Ren, who caught it smartly. Ren then seated himself at the dressing table and began working its contents onto his ridiculously long legs.

Hux laid his datapad aside and sat back, one arm behind his head as he watched Ren intently. “How vain and demanding you are. How did you ever survive being a knight with no name or opinion about anything?”

A muscle jumped in Ren’s cheek. He sat back and rubbed the lotion between his hands in a brisk, chafing motion. “I was very young. It was a relief, in a way. Not to have to think or explain myself after–” he stopped. “Well. You can probably imagine that when I left my first master it was not an easy separation. Leader Snoke placed me with the knights for training, but also, I think, for my own peace of mind.”

“How long did you serve the former Lord Ren?”

“I’m not sure. Time passed differently for me then. I think… maybe eight standard years? About that.”

“And all that time you could only ‘talk’ in that strange language of hand-signals?”

“It’s not a language. It doesn’t have a grammar, or ways to combine ideas into a sentence. And they’re not hand-signals – the placement of each part of the body is important.”

“Or what – you mean to say ‘anger’ and accidentally communicate ‘constipation’?”

Ren gave him a cool look that suggested he was above such crude humour. “Or you say nothing at all and no-one will acknowledge you.”

“That must have been hard for you to endure.”

Ren shrugged with one shoulder, rubbing lotion into the bridge of his nose. “At first. After a while it’s natural. You’d be surprised how easy it is not to think.”

Hux crossed his legs at the ankles. “And so you were a good little minion right up until the day you rose up and murdered your leader?”

“Hm,” Ren smiled, ducked his head. “Let’s just say I had a lot of practice with the form for ‘contrition’.”

“Was it strange to become the leader?”

Ren looked up, frowning thoughtfully, as the smoothed out the lotion over his broad shoulders. “Sometimes I think I should have waited, but I was impatient… I could feel my power growing. Then suddenly I could speak again – I had to speak – I had to be between the knights and the rest of the galaxy. It was a lot of responsibility.”

“You make it sound like you were a teenage mother,” Hux smiled. “Then again, I know the feeling – I climbed the ranks so fast I sometimes forgot my own title and had to check my uniform insignia. It’s the times, I think: we’re a special generation.”

“Perhaps for you it’s the times. For me it is destiny, written long before I was born.” The effect of Ren’s pronouncement was somewhat ruined by the undignified position he held as he said it, one sharp elbow up in the air and neck cricked to the side as he struggled to reach the centre of his own back.

Hux rolled his eyes and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress. “Alright Master Chosen One, come here.”

When Ren approached, Hux reached out and took the bottle from his hand. Ren made as if to come closer and then narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Can I get on the bed?”

“Hmm, can you indeed? There must be a form for that – ‘entreaty’?”

Ren shook his head. “Knights of Ren are not supposed to want anything.”

“Oh. Well we’ll have to find a substitute: what is the closest you could come to it?”

Ren considered this for a moment. “There is one for ‘abasement’.”

“Yes,” Hux smiled, eyes brightening. “Show me abasement.” He reached up and pulled the towel loose from Ren’s waist, letting it fall behind him onto the floor. When Ren hesitated, he prompted: “Go on, I’m sure you remember it well enough.”

Ren took a deep, centring breath then entered the form, moving like a piece of machinery that had been exquisitely designed for this specific task. He sank into a kneeling position, folding his knees beneath him and pressing his thighs together in a perfect parallel. He then raised his hands, interlacing his fingers and resting them, palms outwards, on top of his head. He bowed his head, eyes closed and chin tucked against his breastbone, then he lowered his upper body to the floor, shoulder blades shifting, spine as taut as a cable. He came to rest with his back held in an elegant curve, palms to the floor, face hidden.

“Oh Ren. That’s…” _lovely_ , Hux thought, _intoxicating_. “That’s really very gratifying.” When Ren moved as if to rise, Hux placed a bare foot on his shoulder to still him. “Ah - hold it for me.”

Ren made a sound of complaint, but kept still. Hux let out a long, slow breath, then sat back and contemplated the pale expanse of Ren’s back as he might the canvas of a painting, noting the placement of the raised, dark moles and the lattice of scars, old and new, the most prominent of which was the exit wound of the bowcaster blast that almost caused him to bleed out in the snow.

Having looked his fill, Hux lifted the bottle that lay discarded nearby on the bed. “Now relax, this might be cold.” He took his foot off Ren’s shoulder and leaned down, cupping one hand across the back of Ren’s neck to keep him in place, then drizzled artful streaks of lotion across the bare expanse of flesh. As he rubbed the emollient into the skin, He felt the tension in Ren’s well-developed muscles, the raised surfaces of the scars. When he dug the heel of his hand into the small of the Ren’s back, Ren let out a soft moan.

“You like this, hmm?” Ren said nothing in reply, but Hux smirked to himself. “You’re pathetically needy and touch-starved, do you know that? I think you’d have allied yourself to anyone who’d let you jump into bed with them.”

“No,” came Ren’s muffled reply. “Just you.”

“Oh, you like abasing yourself before me, in particular?” Hux worked his hand between Ren’s shoulder blades. “I wonder why that is.”

Ren made another sound of bitten-back pleasure, but did not reply. Hux leaned forward, keeping his grip on Ren’s neck as he tossed the lotion back into its drawer. From the same place he pulled out a tube of lubricant, then he edged himself forward on the mattress, his feet placed either side of Ren’s shoulders, and leaned over him. “Again,” he said, flicking the cap back one-handed, “this might be cold.”

Ren’s buttocks tensed as the cool gel dripped between them and he let out a gasp. Always one to double-down, Hux distracted him with a sharp smack to the left cheek, watched with satisfaction as his handprint flared pinkly and then faded. Ren was holding his breath. “Go on, you ridiculous creature. I know you like this, let me hear it.” He smacked the other side just as hard with the opposite hand, aiming for a symmetrical, butterfly-like effect; this time Ren gave a low moan.

“Good boy.” Hux pulled his buttocks apart and then pushed them together again, smearing the lubricant.  He pushed into Ren with one finger and felt him shake with the effort of holding still.

“That’s it, keep displaying yourself for me.” He pushed deeper with every thrust, the sinew of his arm flexing with the angle and effort. “You always wanted this, didn’t you? To have someone see how wanton you are, how easy to touch.” Hux added another finger, used his free hand to give Ren’s reddening cheek another slap. “You burned for it under all those layers, under that stupid mask.” Ren made an incoherent choking sound. “Well? Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Ren replied, his voice strained. He let out what sounded suspiciously like a sob.

When Hux judged that he had worked him loose enough, he slowly withdrew his fingers and sat back. “Alright, you can come out of that now. At ease, soldier.”

Ren rose to a kneeling position and wrapped his arms around Hux’s middle, pushing his flushed and burning face against Hux’s stomach. Hux’s eyes widened as he felt hot uneven breaths and the suspicious dampness of Ren’s cheek, a tell-tale trembling of his chin.

“Ren, are you _crying_?”

“No,” he said, voice shuddery and unconvincing. Then he gave a choked-back sob, shoulders jerking with it.

“If I’m doing something you don’t like, I’d rather you asked me to stop.”

“I do like it.” Ren muttered sulkily, arms tightening around his waist.

“Well,” Hux said, nonplussed. He rubbed his dry hand through Ren’s hair. “Do you need a minute to compose yourself?” He felt Ren shake his head, press two quick, burning kisses to his hip, and then sit back on his heels. His face was blotchy and his eyelashes wet, his mouth red and swollen. His gaze flicked downwards towards Hux’s cock.

“Can I?”

“I think you’ve done enough pleading for one night,” Hux reached out and brushed back the strands of hair that were stuck to Ren’s brow. “You can have anything you want.”

Ren did not need to be invited twice, Hux almost yelped at the sensation of Ren’s wet mouth eagerly closing around the head of his dick. He bit his bottom lip and tangled his fingers in the hair at the nape of Ren’s neck to draw it back from his face. Ren had gained some rudimentary skills under Hux’s tutelage, but he still had no patience or refinement; still, Hux couldn’t resist watching the stretch of his mouth and cheek, the working of his throat as he struggled to relax and take it deeper. Ren pulled back and sucked lingeringly at the wet tip, the point of his tongue darting out to circle the slit.

Hux rubbed the back of his neck. “Your mouth, I swear, Ren…”

“Can I—”

“Yes, anything.”

Ren’s expressive face underwent a series of changes: first he looked suspicious, then thrilled, and then cunning. “Anything? So I could ask to fuck you and you’d say yes?”

“You could, but I don’t think you have the patience for that. I’m ready to fuck _you_ right now, and that’s what you really want.” Hux gave him a smug smile and reached back to dabble his fingers against Ren’s slick hole.

“Fine,” Ren agreed, lip set in a pout even as his eyelashes fluttered at the sensation of Hux teasing him. “But I’m getting on top. And I’m going to touch you.”

Hux was always happy to indulge Ren’s little rebellions if it meant greater goodwill and compliance in the long run. While he was extremely fond of ordering Ren about and exploiting the tension between his pride and his base desires, he was also perfectly willing to let Ren put his back into their fucking for once. He lay back and wrapped his slippery hand around his shaft, spreading the remaining lubricant over himself, then he stretched out, lifting one hand and cocking an eyebrow in invitation. The forbidden, thirty-fourth form: come and get it.

Ren clambered on top of him, too big for the space (for any space, really), so he had to bend slightly and brace his arms against the upper frame of the berth. He reached behind himself and grasped Hux’s cock at the base, struggling to position himself properly, pale, thickly-muscled thighs trembling against Hux’s stomach. He sank down a little and lost the right angle, huffing with frustration.

“Would you like some help with that?” Hux grasped Ren’s waist and helped to position him, tilting his own hips up at a more favourable angle. Ren gasped and whined, mouth falling open, perspiration gleaming on his throat and chest. No sooner had he seated himself fully than he began to move, lifting up and dropping back down heavily with a grunt. Ren was always like this: rough and greedy for sensation, wanting to get there as fast and hard as possible. He still had the impatience of someone who had only ever known stolen moments of self-pleasure and hardscrabble orgasms. Hux tightened his grip on Ren’s waist, slowed his movements and pushed up at the apex to make Ren take him right to the hilt. It was incredible: to be gripped within that tight, powerful body which always seemed to run a few degrees too hot. Hux gazed up at Ren as he loomed over him, rocking back and forth in heedless self-interest, his leaking cock bouncing against his taut, muscled stomach with every thrust. If this was the last thing Hux ever committed to his long-term memory, so be it. One of Ren’s hands still clasped at the frame of the bed above him, the other raked down Hux’s chest, catching painfully on his nipple.

“Bastard,” he hissed, slapping Ren’s cock with the back of his hand.

“Want you to feel this,” Ren grunted out. “Your body to ache tomorrow, so you remember.” The way Ren said it, looking somewhere between demonic and deranged with his hair stuck to his forehead and sharp, effortful gasps coming from between his teeth, it did not seem as if this was merely a tactical matter.

Hux grasped his hips and pulled him down harder, even as he felt the rushing, spiralling tingle of his own impending orgasm. “Are you going to come for me? Come for me just from this?” he gave Ren’s cock another disdainful slap. “Like the greedy slut you are?”

“Mm-mm, I want to,” Ren whined breathlessly. “Make me come, please, make me come.”

“What a stupid, messy boy you are. Only good for this, aren’t you?”

“Yes!” Ren panted, bouncing eagerly.

“That’s right,” Hux took the base of his cock in a back-handed grip and squeezed. “Only good to follow my orders and take my dick.”

“Yes! Hux—” with one last shuddering, pelvis-bruising shove and a yell, Ren came across his own and Hux’s stomach. Hux took the last few sharp thrusts he needed to get himself there and groaned deeply through it, the strong pulses of his orgasm seeming the trail on and on as Ren’s suffocating weight pressed him down. He permitted himself one mad, possessive thought about how good it felt to fill Ren with his semen, to have it spill out of him and mark his body inside and out.   

He allowed Ren to slump on top of him for a while, ignoring the heat and the stickiness as his body came down from the overstimulated high. When Ren snuffled in his ear, Hux grumbled and pushed at his face.

“Come on, get up. Just for that you’re having another sonic shower.”

*~*~*

Ren made no move to dress himself when they returned from the refresher. Instead, he climbed back into Hux’s bed, curling around Hux when the latter joined him and trying to fit his gangly limbs into the confined space.

“We should have done this in my quarters,” Ren complained, shifting. “My bed is twice the size of yours.”

“Yes well. Unfortunately it’s not so much a living area as it is a giant reliquary for the sacred remains of Darth Vader.”

Ren huffed his displeasure against Hux’s neck. “Don’t ruin my good mood.”

“Just an observation. I don’t find your rooms very conducive to romance.”

Ren pressed his forehead against Hux’s temple and kissed the corner of his mouth. His fingers curled around Hux’s shoulder, thumb stroking in the hollow of his clavicle. “Romance? Is that what this is?”

“Of course,” Hux frowned at him in the low light. “Why, do you find something in my attentions lacking?”

“You’re a little matter-of-fact. If you’re going for romance there should be more—”

“What, circumstance? Gifts and laudatory verses?”

Ren made a sound that suggested this was not quite what he had been thinking of.

“I don’t think we should stretch it too far,” Hux cautioned. “Not beyond the realm of probability for men of our natures. Though, now that I think about it, you are rather intense and mercurial. Perhaps you should declare your ardent love for me. Yes, I think I could believe that.”

Ren scowled at him. “Has anyone ever told you that your arrogance will be your downfall, Hux?”

“Yes – as a matter of fact my father is quite of that opinion.” Hux took the opportunity to extricate himself from the bed and went in search of his nicotine fix. When he returned with the vaporizer clenched between his teeth, Ren moved aside to allow him to climb back in, then absorbed him back into the tangled mass of limbs.

“Tell me about your family,” Ren said, lips brushing Hux’s shoulder.

Hux exhaled a cloud of vapor. “Can’t you just poke through my memories at your leisure?”

“I want you to tell it. I want to hear the words you choose.”

Hux sighed to indicate his reluctance. “There’s nothing to say that isn’t a matter of public record.” Ren raised himself on one elbow and gazed at him, waiting. Hux met his dark, earnest gaze and looked away again with irritation. “Alright, look: my father was commandant of the academy on Arkanis. The Empire fell. We went to the Unknown Regions. He became disenchanted with the rising Order and went into exile. Or, even further into exile. My mother went back to the Core. She married a Corellian, then a Brentaalan, then another Brentaalan. She’s at the centre of a network of old imperial families, the people who did well under Palpatine; who can be tapped for a donation and like to hear of the Order’s successes so long as she makes it seem like we might offer them a better deal than the Republic. That’s it - I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Tell me why talking about them makes you angry.”

Hux laughed. “Is this you playing at being a therapist? Imagine that, Kylo Ren as a caretaker of other people’s mental stability.”

“You’re avoiding the subject.”

“There’s nothing further to be said: my parents were cold, ambitious people who were fanatically dedicated to the Empire. That neatly explains everything that I am, there’s no mystery there.”

“I don’t think it explains you at all. If you were like your parents you wouldn’t resent them.”

“I don’t resent them, Ren. That would be a waste of my time and energy.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re both narcissists. I’m a satellite they launched deep into space and they watch with mild interest when I come back around. There’s no more to it than that.”

“You think they didn’t really care about you?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that. Let’s just say that it was always made clear that their regard was subject to my fulfilling certain conditions.”

Ren stroked his jawline with one finger. “That must have been hard. To know that you weren’t loved.”

Hux wanted to slap the pitying look off Ren’s face. “A child, like any organism, grows to fit the space it is allotted.”

Ren drew his eyebrows closer together. “Ben’s parents loved him, but they were afraid of him. They saw the darkness in him.”

“And what, they couldn’t hug away the teen angst?” Hux took another contemplative puff, sent the vapour out in tight, upward spirals.

“It wasn’t like that. His mother, especially – she was Force-sensitive. She sensed his power, how he might be tempted to use it. She feared for him, but more than that she feared for – well, the rest of the galaxy. Can you imagine that – what it would be like to look in your mother’s eyes and see that you’re a time-bomb?”

“That’s exactly what my parents _hoped_ I would be.” Hux glanced over at Ren’s face in profile. He was glowering, lost in his own self-pitying memories. Is that really what it was all about – the bruised little ego of a boy whose mother didn’t provide him with quite as much of her affection as he felt entitled to? “What was she like, General Organa?”

Ren sighed. “Like the histories all say: a strong leader, just, perceptive.”

“The _republican_ histories say that, they are considerably biased. Besides, she can’t have been all that perceptive, given how you turned out.”

“Shut your mouth, Hux!”

“Oh I’m sorry – I thought you wanted us to have some honest pillow talk?”  

“I do want that, but you’re… you’re not a good listener,” Ren seemed genuinely frustrated, turning his face to the wall. “You’re always hurrying people along. Looking for an angle, or a gap to pry open. It’s annoying.”

Hux’s eyes widened, he repressed the urge to let out an astonished laugh. “Well, excuse my training in formal debate.”

Ren looked back over at him, lower lip pushed out in a pettish expression. “If you ask me a question, I’ll tell you the answer – because I want to, in my own words – but you have to _listen_.”

“Alright, alright,” Hux put aside his smoking paraphernalia and commanded the lights down to five percent. He felt Ren roll over and a huge hand come to rest on the centre of his chest. “So,” Hux ventured after an awkward pause, “what’s dying like?”

Ren’s exhale of amusement fanned against his cheek. “The dying is easy; it’s finding the will to come back that’s the hard part.” After a thoughtful pause, he continued: “for a moment – a moment that felt like eternity – I was absorbed into the Force, and I was a part of every living thing. We talk about light and dark side, but the Force _itself_ – it’s not good or evil, it’s just there – immanent.” Ren paused. “But I know you think this is mystical garbage.”

“How did you? Find the will to come back, I mean.”

“I don’t know. Stubbornness, I guess.”

Hux smiled at him in the darkness.

“Don’t laugh.”

“I wasn’t going to. I think it’s admirable, actually. You could have chosen to take your ease, languish in your blissful afterlife of oneness and wonder, but instead you clawed your way back to life; to all there is that’s left to accomplish.”

“I’m not afraid anymore – not of death. It’s like that part of me has been cut away. In a strange way I almost miss it.”

“You’re beyond that now – you’re the dying and rising god, Ren.”

“What?”

“It’s a monomyth, something that turns up across all times and cultures – even non-human ones. The great hero confronts death and returns more than mortal. Deified.”

Ren was giving him a wary, sceptical look. “You don’t really think that?”

“I mean, not _literally_ – obviously you’re still a mortal man. But myths are useful, we can exploit it.”

Ren’s voice was warm, amused. “During our glorious, thousand-year reign?”

“Exactly. That’s what you want, isn’t it, to be a legend? An even greater one than your grandfather was.”

“What I want doesn’t really matter – it’s _fated_.”

Hux breathed out evenly, tamped down on the urge to say something cutting. He reminded himself that he needed Ren, for the present, at least; that this great lolling man-child with an absurdly fragile ego was his ticket to an empire. “Can you really predict the future? Can you close your eyes and see us succeeding, for example?”

“No – the Force doesn’t work like that, seeing the future is not like playing a hologram. I can catch glimpses of what may come to pass, but it’s always in flux. I can’t choose what part of the future I see, or when.”

“The Force is something of a tease.”

 “Yes. It’s best not to rely on these visions – they lack context and can lead the seer astray. But don’t worry – I know for certain that I am fated for glorious things, and I am your ally. That should give you some comfort.”

Hux only partially stifled the snort of amusement and disbelief that this last pronouncement prompted. “Oh yes, _very_ comforting.”

Ren did not seem offended. He continued to stroke the hair off Hux’s brow and when he spoke his voice had a warm timbre. “I know you doubt the security of our alliance, but you shouldn’t. I’m grateful to you, and I will keep faith.”

“Grateful? For what?” For a delirious moment Hux thought Ren might actually declare himself in love, pathetically enraptured as he clearly was by the unfamiliar sexual contact and physical affection.  

“You gave me a _choice_ ,” Ren replied, as if this was something he thought Hux already knew. “I haven’t had that in a long time. Even… even when I killed Solo it felt more like a compulsion; as if there was a momentum carrying me along. Your offer wasn’t like that. It was a calculated move, yes, but that is your nature. You still offered your throat to me, in that moment. You asked me yes or no and it was a real choice. I could have said no, I could have gone to the Supreme Leader and exposed your betrayal; I could have cut you down where you stood and explained later.”

Hux stiffened. “Yes, I’m aware.”

“And because you have given me that, I am your ally. This is an agreement I will not break – understand that, Hux. If treachery comes, it comes from you. If the bond is undone, it is undone by you. Hold on to me and I will not let you go.” His voice had become low and rapid, as if he were speaking the words of an incantation or prayer. “That is my word, I am able to give it because I am a man again. It was choosing that gave me back my reason.”

Hux could see the eager shine of Ren’s eyes in the dark, the hand spanning his breastbone an almost suffocating weight. He felt the hairs standing up along the back of his neck – a fight or flight reaction. He thought of the corporal from Naboo, and how beneath the layers of surprise and contempt Hux felt at his proposal, what he had actually felt was _fear_. Fear that such intensity of devotion came from a deep well of madness and self-destruction, and that somewhere within Hux himself there might be lurking just such a pit. What if he never got out from beneath Ren’s big, grasping hand – what if he never wanted to?

“Shh,” Ren said, kissing his cheek softly. “Go to sleep. You need your rest: a tired mind is more susceptible to invasion.” 

“Yes,” Hux replied faintly. That he could believe well enough.

*~*~*~

Hux seated himself before the mirror and spread out the materials of his morning routine before him. When he touched his fingertip to his hairline and raised the comb, he caught sight of Ren still sprawled out on the bed, one foot hanging off the end of the frame. He was smirking.

“What?”

“You’re so vain.”

“Not all of us can hide our lack of personal grooming under a mask.”

“That _is_ your mask.”

Hux continued his routine, making each movement more lingering and precise than it needed to be. As he dressed and smoothed out each item of clothing, he calmed himself by mentally repeating the words he had learned from that quaint little antique in his mother’s house: _First there is a planet. Then there is no planet. Then there is._ He marshalled his thoughts behind it, projected it outwards in calm, regular beats. 

Ren’s eyebrows twitched. “Why are you reciting a Jedi koan to yourself?”

“Oh, I read it somewhere. I like the way it sounds.”

“Do you actually know what it means?”

Hux brushed invisible traces of lint from the sleeve of his tunic. “I think it’s about destroying in order to rebuild.”

Ren made a derisive sound. “It’s about perception. Before you start your training, you see things as everyone does. Then through training you realise how unreal and transient everything we accept as ‘reality’ is, and you let it go. When you finally complete your training you’re supposed to be able to piece everything back together, but it’s renewed, fresh.”

“I’m guessing you never got to that last part.”

Ren scowled at him. Hux ignored his displeasure, clipping his belt into place and drawing himself up straight. “Test me again.”

Ren shifted, his lithe frame flexing. “We’ve already done it a hundred times, Hux.”

“Do you know how many simulations I run before I send my troops out on even a minor manoeuvre?”

Ren responded with an aggressive yawn, showing Hux the dark underside of his curled-back tongue. Then he rubbed his eye with the heel of a hand and dropped his arm onto the mattress, patting it. “Come over here, then.”

“I know you can do it across a room.”

“Indulge me, Hux.”

“I indulge you far too often as it is – that is what concerns me.” Hux approached the bed and stood, gazing down at Ren, who twisted and reached for him. Hux stepped back out of his reach. “Ah-ah. You know the rules. Put your sweaty hands away where they can’t get at my uniform.”

Ren gave a husky laugh. “Yes, my emperor.” He held up his hands, swivelling them back and forth like a magician seeking to prove them empty. Then he leaned back and tucked him under his body.

“You’d better not think that before the Supreme Leader, not even in insolent jest.”

“Yes, Bren,” he amended. Hux leaned in and gave Ren’s cheek a light slap, enough to sting but not to mark.

“Don’t think _that_ either.”

Ren made a humming, thoughtful sound. “If you don’t like your name you should give yourself a new one.”

“Is that so, _Kylo_?”

“It doesn’t have to be as good as that.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Go on, enough small talk.”

“Kiss me first.”

Hux leaned over and brought his face close enough that Ren could just raise himself enough to brush their lips together. He smirked into the frustrated kiss, feeling powerful and composed, if just for this moment. At the sensation of Ren’s mind pushing against his own he found his little cache of forbidden plans and pulled the other memories around it: Ren’s beautiful back bowed and naked before him. Ren’s plush mouth and the scent of his skin. The touch of a wet strand of dark hair against his cheek. Ren above him with his arms braced on the sides of the berth, fucking himself on Hux’s cock.

Ren slumped back on the mattress, neck flushed and eyes wide. “Do you have to show him the _worst_ stuff?

“The worst stuff is the _treason_ , Ren. You agreed to this plan, it’s too late to mourn your dignity now.”

Ren bit his bottom lip. “Well, it’s definitely vivid.”

“Good,” Hux said. “Get dressed, he’ll be waiting.”

*~*~*

They walked side by side along the long stone corridor. As in the great hall, light could penetrate only through narrow eyelets high up near the ceiling. The architecture was foreign to Hux – possibly it was that of Snoke’s own species – but it was clear the building was a defensive structure, and an ancient one at that; a relic from the age of hurled projectiles and savage blades of metal or bone.

The paving slabs glimmered in the cold, weak light with some embedded phosphorescent mineral, creating a glow around their feet that was not unlike emergency power lighting. Ren was silent and masked, visible only in Hux’s peripheral vision as he stared resolutely ahead towards the steps that would take them down to the audience chamber, and their fate.

As they came to the top step, they both paused and gazed down into to where the stones disappeared away into a rectangle of deepest black. A crypt-odour of wet earth and rot floated up to them on a wave of cold air.

Ren moved when he did: they were in lockstep. Ren had promised they always would be; Hux had promised that it would make them invincible. Now time would tell which (if either) of them were liars.

 _Dying is easy_ , Hux remembered _. It’s coming back that is the hard part_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand that's your lot! Thank-you to all who ~~enabled~~ encouraged me and left comments. I am contemplating an epilogue of sorts set a decade hence, for those of you who want more of these horrible bastards. Stay tuned to my kylux porn production line.


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